


You Can Run

by GrenadeFestival



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (mostly), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Astrid is multiclassing in "wizard" and "fuck you", Canon-Typical Violence, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, I hope you like watching the MN argue because argue they shall, M/M, Mutual Pining, Rescue Missions, Self-Sacrifice, characters afraid of fucking up act out of fear and fuck up, in light of recent events this tag is now necessary, playing fast and loose with D&D rules, playing jumprope with the fine line between healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms, this fic was supposed to be short, while there is some fluff actually tagging this as fluff feels cruel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-05-31 16:45:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15123665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrenadeFestival/pseuds/GrenadeFestival
Summary: Caleb knew that if he ever saw Astrid again that it would be awkward at best and dangerous at worst, but not once did he think the worst case scenario would involve a manhunt for someone he'd developed romantic feelings for.Molly knew there was a good chance that sooner rather than later, someone else would come looking for Lucien, and that person was just as likely to be an enemy as a friend. He didn't expect that enemy to be his crush's ex.Based off the headcanon that Astrid and the woman from the capital who was there for whatever ritual put Molly's ass in the dirt are the same person.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> From the maker of Widomauk festival fluff comes...well, one of those things lol. I had an angst craving, so I thought I would satisfy it with a drabble and that drabble became two chapters and two became three and you get the idea. 
> 
> This story is meant to take place some time after the declaration of war on Xhorhas. I began writing this before the start of the Labenda Swamp arc and it has taken me all through that and beyond to finish it. As I was writing, I was watching the new episodes and thinking about how what’s been revealed would factor into this story, and some things were easy to work in (such as newly revealed character traits and character development) by going back and rewriting pieces or adding things. Others were...not. That being said, any new D&D mechanic related things that appeared or were used for the first time in that arc (such as new spells, new class abilities, new items) will not be featured in this fic because some of those things would wreck my plot and either make the problems that arise too easy to solve OR would make solving those problems more difficult. If anything new related to mechanics sneaks in, it’s because it was either convenient for me or I didn’t realize, lol. 
> 
> This is a complete work, and I will be updating it weekly until it's done. Enjoy!

It wasn’t that Molly hadn’t believed Jester when she said the Menagerie Coast was beautiful - obviously a place renown for its vibrant trading culture and balmy climate had to be - but he never expected it to be so breathtaking  _ all the time _ . Every corner of the city was rich with warm yellows and smooth blues, striking reds and greens and purples. Even the brown tones of the sandstone buildings and cobbled streets showed flashes of orange and pink when the sun hit them just right. The air was thick with moisture and heavy with the smell of the salty ocean, but the caress of the breeze against his face and the musical chatter of the city around him made him feel as light as the bright banners that waved over the streets and the soft silks that adorned the clothes of those who passed by. 

He couldn’t have asked for a better place to be alone with Caleb. 

He wasn’t quite sure how they’d ended up running errands, just the two of them. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the chance to spend some quality time with the man he’d chosen to bestow his affections on, but he’d fully expected at least one other person to volunteer to come with them. After all, their errands were objectively more fun than checking the job board in the town hall and meeting up with the Gentleman’s people here to conclude their latest business. (Smuggling. A good excuse to leave the Empire, and perhaps the most uneventful job they’d seen so far despite the nature of their mysterious but definitely illegal cargo.) However, all of them seemed like they wanted to be part of the “whose dirty work do we do next?” conversation. 

Or maybe they were hoping the lively, romantic atmosphere would get himself and Caleb to just shut up and fuck already. 

But maybe that was just him. 

Molly leaned back in his creaky wooden chair after finishing off the last of the strange but delicious pastries they’d ordered, watching the activity in the small square outside the little cafe. (“We have to stop and figure out what they’re serving because it smells incredible. My treat,” he’d said as they passed by.) Across the table, Caleb eyed the drink they’d ordered to share with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. He gave the rich brown contents of the short glass an experimental sniff before taking a sip. Molly watched his expressions change as he went through every stage of grief at once. He couldn’t help but smile. 

“I take it the coffee thing isn’t that great, then?” he asked. 

“Not worth the gold we paid for it,” Caleb replied, sliding the glass over to him. 

Molly took it and held it up to his nose. He’d never heard of “coffee” before, but apparently it was something that grew on a continent in the far, far south. The merchants sometimes imported the beans to the Menagerie Coast, but it wasn’t something the common folk could usually afford. A local delicacy. He could smell the bitterness right away, and underneath it a complex of foreign flavors he couldn’t quite describe. It was surprisingly enticing. The first sip, however, failed to live up to expectation. 

He grimaced. 

“Oh...Wow, that’s bitter,” he said, giving the flavors a moment to settle on his tongue, “But...not intolerable.” 

“Well you are certainly welcome to it,” Caleb said. 

Molly took another sip, arcing his eyebrow in a comically exaggerated manner. 

“Hm. Yeah, it’s growing on me,” he said. 

A faint smile spread across Caleb’s face. His eyes wandered out across the square, taking in the crowds milling back and forth in the high afternoon sun. It was the first time the sun had shown itself since they got here, and the city was taking full advantage. The coast was beautiful, yes, but in the winter it did nothing but rain. Molly finished off the coffee, a little disappointed that they’d only ordered one cup, and set the glass back down on the worn silver tray it came on. He rested his elbows on the table, folding his arms over each other, and followed Caleb’s gaze out into the square. It didn’t hold his attention long before he turned his eyes back to the wizard. 

“So,” he said, “We’ve secured our lodgings for the evening, found the nearest purveyor of magical artifacts, found the blacksmith  _ and  _ a bakery, even found a reasonably priced bookshop, and all well ahead of schedule. So what do we want to do now?” 

Caleb’s eyes flitted back towards him, and for a moment they made eye contact before Caleb looked away again. Before, whenever Caleb caught him staring, he’d always gotten flustered and frightened, unsure of how to take it. Now it barely seemed to bother him as they’d gotten more comfortable with each other. 

“I suppose we should check up on the others,” he said. 

“What’s the rush?” Molly asked, leaning back and holding his arms out, “Look at this place! I can think of about a dozen better things we could do, and that’s just in this square alone.” 

Caleb mulled the idea over, crossing his arms and idly stroking his stubbly beard. 

“Well, we  _ are  _ ahead of schedule,” he reasoned. 

Molly grinned. 

“Exactly, and honestly when’s the next time we’ll get to do this?” he asked. 

Caleb glanced over at him. 

“Do what?” 

“You know, just relax. Just us. We’ve been fighting monsters together for weeks, bonding as a group and all that, but compared to literally everyone else, I feel like I barely know you.” 

Caleb smiled a thin, bitter smile. 

“Ah, well…” 

He trailed off as something in the square caught his eye. The smile dropped immediately. Panic bloomed in his deep blue eyes. He turned fully towards the table in one sharp movement and cast his eyes downward. Molly tensed and sat up, a spike of adrenaline coursing through him. 

“What, what is it?” he asked. 

Caleb glanced again towards the square out of the corner of his eye. Molly followed his gaze. Caleb could have been looking at anyone in the busy crowds, but this woman, clad in her finely tailored leather armor and tunic dyed the colors of the empire, stuck out like a sore thumb. Her shoulders were stiff, and her eyes swept the crowd like a mountain lion waiting for a deer to stumble across its path. Her presence was sharp and cold compared to the people around her who bustled from place to place like songbirds. She carried no visible weapons, but that did little to put Molly at ease. He looked back at Caleb. 

“Friend of yours?” he asked. 

“After all this time, I doubt it,” Caleb murmured. 

Molly raised an eyebrow. 

“Unfortunate coincidence? Or were you followed?”

“I’m not sure. Either way, I think we should leave before she sees us.” 

Molly nodded and stood. He tossed a tip onto the table. Caleb didn’t wait. He was already heading for the nearest side street. The two of them ducked down a narrow pedestrian road, the sun disappearing behind the tall buildings and under the strings of clothes and rugs that hung between the window sills high above their heads. Caleb put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, glancing behind him every so often. Molly put a hand on his arm. 

“Look, you don’t have to tell me how you know her, but I  _ would  _ like to know what kind of problem we might be dealing with,” he said. 

“She’s...someone I knew a long time ago. Last I saw her, she was training as a mage for the empire,” Caleb murmured, “We...did not part on good terms...exactly.”

“Any reason she’d be looking for you?” 

“After all this time, I would be surprised if she were,” Caleb said, “But I cannot be certain, and I know if she sees me, she will remember me.” 

“How long’s it been exactly?” Molly asked.

Caleb paused to think about it. 

“About fifteen years now,” he replied. 

“Seriously, that long? Why are you so sure she’ll recognize you? People can change a lot in far less time than that. I bet you couldn’t even grow a beard fifteen years ago.”  

“That much is true, but I’m not interested in taking chances with her.”

They turned down another side street, this one even narrower than the first, and paused. The woman didn’t appear in the crowd behind them, nor did they see her as they continued walking, choosing random turns and even backtracking a few times. When they finally stopped, Caleb sighed. 

“I don’t think she followed us,” he said, “I am sorry about all that.” 

He picked at his gloves and stared at the ground, refusing to look at Molly. His voice was even, but it shook at the edges, as if he were forcing down a tidal wave of anxiety that was threatening to consume him. Molly wasn’t sure saying “it’s fine, seriously” would help, but he said it anyway, trying to alleviate even a little of Caleb’s obvious discomfort. He found it strange, Caleb’s certainty that this woman would still know him. Part of him was tempted to wave it off as nerves, but this wasn’t Caleb’s usual brand of anxiety. This was fear that had been tempered by shared history. Something intense. Something formative. You didn’t forget things like that, or the people who were involved.

“If you don’t think she’ll be a problem, we don’t have to tell the others,” he said. 

“Well that’s just it, I don’t know for sure,” Caleb said, “At the very least, I’m going to tell Beau and Nott about it. They, ah...well they know the story now.” 

He swallowed hard and snapped a loose thread off the hem of one of his gloves. He took a deep breath, trying and failing to calm the storm of emotions tumbling around in his chest. 

“And I suppose...I suppose you should know it too,” he said, “If she turns up again, I would not want you to be unprepared for whatever might happen.” 

“Caleb, you really don’t have to-,” Molly started to say, his usual indifference fighting through the racing of his heart and the uneasy warmth spreading across his skin. 

Part of him honest to god did not want to know about the skeletons in Caleb’s closet. He’d had his share of theories (the fear of fire, fire around  _ people  _ specifically, the jail time, the paranoia always just under the surface, the sadness in his voice whenever he talked about home, it all added up to  _ something _ ) but none of those theories ever led anywhere mundane. At best they were traumatic and dangerous for Caleb alone. At worst they were dangerous for everyone around him. Molly preferred to just enjoy the wizard’s company and not to think about it. He was good at not thinking about things. Not so good at dealing with them. 

And yet, there was another part of him that was too damn curious for his own good. It wanted to know if any of his theories were correct. It wanted to know what kind of mess he was getting himself into. It wanted to know if there was a way to help. To his ire, he found that part was starting to win. 

“No, no, I...I want you to know. I’ve been so afraid to tell anyone in the group, but I think…” Caleb paused, a bitter chuckle escaping him, “Beau and Nott were so quick to say the whole thing wasn’t my fault.” 

He paused, folding his arms and resting his chin on his hand, his fingers trembling. His voice caught for a moment as he continued. 

“I didn’t expect it, but if they’re not going to turn on me, then I can’t imagine you would,” he said.

He took a deep breath and buried his hands in his pockets, still refusing to meet Molly’s eye. 

“Let’s go back to the inn first. Then I’ll tell you everything,” he said.

Molly nodded, worrying his lip. 

“Lead the way.”

* * *

 

The story wasn’t any easier to tell the second time, which Caleb was intensely annoyed about. He hated how his voice shook. Hated how his eyes burned more and more the longer he spoke, and yet refused to let him indulge in the crushing grief he carried with him deep in the pit of his stomach. He hated how pathetic he sounded, how timid and trembling he was sure he looked, because dammit all he didn’t deserve to be pitied, no matter what anyone said. He hated how he had to stop again half way through as the ghosts of his parents’ screams echoed through his head, digging their claws into his chest again and bringing with them the smell of woodsmoke and sharp night air. But Molly listened patiently through the whole thing, and Caleb couldn’t help but allow himself some relief because of it.

He took a long, heavy breath, trying to bring himself back down. 

“So there, that’s all of it,” he said.

“Alright,” Molly said, “And that’s all I’m going to say, because I know nothing else I can say to you is going to sound genuine, especially coming from me.” 

Caleb chewed the inside of his lip, but said nothing. 

“Are you sure Astrid is still working for the Empire? You’re sure she didn’t leave at some point?” Molly asked. 

“She was wearing armor and Empire colors today. I doubt she would do that if she deserted.”

“Right,” Molly said, tapping his index finger on his thigh, “So I suppose she would be honor bound to report you if she saw you.” 

Caleb nodded, folding his hands and resting his chin on them. 

“Still...You mentioned you had a sort of romantic relationship with her before. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be careful, but is there any chance, if you  _ were  _ caught, that she might let you go because of that? Does she make sappy gestures like that?” Molly asked. 

“Mollymauk, this woman was willing to sit down and have a meal with her parents knowing full well it would be their last, and she felt nothing,” Caleb said, “Astrid is not a sentimental person.” 

“Well, I don’t know, there’s an argument to be made that sitting down for one last supper rather than getting it over with is sentimental,” Molly said. Caleb gave him an irritated glance, not appreciating the attempt at levity or whatever else Molly meant by the statement. Regret flashed across the tiefling’s face immediately, “Sorry. Nevermind. Suffice to say, she’ll kick your ass if she catches even a whiff of you, past relationships be damned.” 

Caleb nodded. Molly took a deep breath. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to come off how it did. I’m really not good at this stuff,” he said, pausing and picking at his nails, “So in case this didn’t get across, I promise I don’t think any less of you because of this. Honestly. And whatever happens, I’ll help you take care of it, ok? All of it.”

And that was all Caleb needed.

* * *

 

“Well we need to find out why she’s here either way,” Nott said, “Even if it is a coincidence, she’s still some crazy powerful wizard from the Empire with no business being here.” 

“The problem’s finding her again,” Beau said. 

The window was closed and the curtain drawn, and out in the street they could hear the sound of rain falling on the cobblestones. Sometimes the warm ocean winds would push the rain in another direction and it would pound against the glass, like a thousand fingers drumming on the window all at once. The humidity that lingered in the room only made the sudden evening chill worse, and Nott was wrapped up in the single bed’s thick cotton blanket. Caleb sat on the bed next to her, and Beau leaned up against the door. Molly sat backwards on the wobbly wooden chair in the corner, his chin resting on his arms as he listened to the others talk. 

“The Empire has to have some kind of outpost here. Or an embassy,” Caleb said, “If she’s here on Empire business that’s where she’ll be staying.”

“So we’ll start there,” Beau said, “Poke around, see what we can find.” 

Nott turned her eyes towards Caleb, the worried scowl on her face deepening. 

“Caleb, you’re sure they can’t find you?” she asked, “At least, not by magic?” 

He nodded, his mouth set into a hard line. 

“If she did follow us here, she tracked us the old-fashioned way.” 

“Not exactly hard to do. We haven’t been hiding,” Molly said.

“Yeah, and you haven’t exactly avoided throwing your name around,” Beau added. 

“Who said Widogast was my real name?” Caleb asked. 

That gave the group pause, but they all dismissed it with a shrug and a silent “whatever, that’s your business.” 

“Well I think our first move should be to find wherever this lady is staying and follow her. See where she goes and who she talks to. Then if there is some kind of Empire outpost where they might keep a record of her or her mission or something, we should see about getting into that,” Beau said. 

Molly made a face.

“Maybe save that second one for Plan B,” he said. 

“How are we going to hide what we’re doing from everyone else?” Nott asked. 

Beau waved her hand. 

“Eh, we’ve got so much downtime right now, I doubt anyone’ll get suspicious if the four of us just go out into town to look around,” she said. 

“And if she  _ is  _ here for Caleb?” Nott asked, “What do we tell them then?” 

“Well I think that’s up to Caleb.” 

Beau crossed her arms and fixed Caleb with an expectant stare. He took a deep breath and folded his hands. 

“If she is here for me,” he said, “I will tell the others. If she comes after me, it could put all of you at risk, and I don’t want that.” 

Beau nodded. 

“Ok. Tomorrow, then? We’ll head out first thing and find out what she wants.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented and left kudos on only the first chapter! I'm so glad to see people are already so interested in this when I've barely begun, and I love all of you <3

The Dwendalian Embassy in the city was surprisingly modest and unassuming. The Empire’s crest was emblazoned on a wooden sign that hung in front of the two-story building, but that was all. No visible guards, no banners, no mess, no fuss. It was an odd but welcome change of pace. Even so, the four of them knew they couldn’t afford to let their guard down. 

Beau, Molly, and Nott camped out in a tavern across the street, watching from the window and nursing single pints of ale so as not to look suspicious (though in Nott’s case, there was little restraint as far as the alcohol was concerned.) They’d insisted Caleb stay back at the inn just in case this went poorly, but he’d refused to listen, so he sat in the back of the tavern with his hood up, out of sight. 

There was little activity for several hours. It took all of Beau’s self control not to complain about being bored every fifteen minutes. By the end of the first hour, she finally caved to Molly’s suggestion that since they didn’t have any real games to play that they make one up. Not wanting Caleb to feel left out, they eventually came up with a game where Caleb would, using his message spell, name a type or color of clothing, and the three of them had to call out as many people on the street wearing that clothing or color as they could in twenty seconds. It was simple, and stupid, and they got perhaps a little too competitive over it, but it passed the time until they saw Astrid walking out of the Embassy. 

Molly spotted her first. He tensed and gave Beau’s arm a smack. 

“That’s her,” he said. 

The two of them stood, but Nott hissed quietly for them to wait. 

“Let me do it,” she said, “You follow behind just out of sight, and if we change direction or if she stops, I’ll send one of you a message.” 

Beau nodded and motioned for Nott to get going. The goblin scampered out of the tavern and into the street. Molly looked over at Caleb and motioned for him to join himself and Beau. 

“We just saw her walk out of the Embassy,” Beau said in a low voice as they left the tavern. Molly watched as Nott slipped out of sight into a crowd further down the street. Caleb nodded, but didn’t reply. 

They walked slow, casual, doing their best to look like they  _ weren’t  _ stalking an imperial operative here on likely nefarious business. Much to their surprise, Nott sent them very few messages, and they never once left the business district, though they did pass into what felt like a somewhat seedier side of it. Astrid’s trail lead them right to an ornate wooden building with tapestries over the windows and very few people coming in or out. The four of them reconvened in an alley nearby. 

“She went in there,” Nott said, pointing at the dark building. 

“Is that...is that a brothel?” Beau asked, narrowing her eyes. 

Molly snorted. 

“Highly doubt she’d be looking for Caleb in there,” he said. 

“Maybe she’s here on some other business then,” Caleb murmured, a touch of relief in his voice, but his nervous expression said he wasn’t ready to believe it just yet. 

“Yeah I’d say that’s definitely  _ other  _ business,” Beau said. 

“Should we go in just in case?” Nott asked, “Or just wait for her to come out?” 

“We might be here a while depending on what she’s in there for,” Molly muttered. 

“Well I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I wanna...follow her in there,” Beau said. 

“I do think we should wait, though,” Nott said. 

“God, if I have to sit and wait anymore I’ll go insane,” Molly said, taking a step towards the mouth of the alley. 

“Hey, wait, where the hell do you think you’re going?” Beau asked, though she made no move to stop him. 

He looked back at the group. 

“Where do you think? I’ll find out if she’s there for business or pleasure and be right back,” he said.

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” Caleb said, taking a step forward, “Astrid has always been an...extremely talented spellcaster. She learned faster than any of us, and even back then she scared me a little.” 

He didn’t say more, but his unspoken fears were plain on his face. 

_ Imagine what she’s capable of now.  _

Molly gave him a gentle smile. 

“I’ll be in and out, quick as you like,” he said, “I won’t engage with her, and I doubt she’d do anything in a building full of witnesses anyway.” 

“Yes, but a place like that will have many rooms and hallways away from prying eyes,” Caleb said, “and I’m worried that even if you don’t talk to her directly, she may realize something is off.”

Molly grinned. 

“Darling, everything about me is off,” he said, “Seriously, I’ll be fine. Come break down the door in twenty minutes if you like.” 

Caleb sighed, but didn’t press further. Clearly this was a losing battle, and it was true, they needed to do  _ something  _ besides call it a day and leave. As Molly exited the alley, he looked back at the group and blew them an impish kiss before heading off across the street. Beau just rolled her eyes, but Caleb felt his face flush a bit. Beau glanced over at him and crossed her arms. 

“Caleb I feel gross asking this, but when are you gonna tap that?” she asked, jabbing her thumb in the direction Molly had gone. 

She may as well have hit him with her quarterstaff for all the sudden vexation the question caused him. He blinked at her, eyes wide, but she didn’t elaborate. She simply looked at him expectantly. 

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“I mean Molly’s crush on you is disgusting and, like...like I’m not crazy right? There’s something there. You totally like him. Nott, I’m not crazy, right?” she asked, giving the goblin a questioning nudge. 

Nott’s face was flushed with all the confusion and embarrassment Caleb was sure he  _ should  _ have been feeling. Her eyes darted back and forth between him and Beau and she struggled to put words together into a sentence.  

“Ah-wh-well I don’t-um,” she stammered, “I don’t...know?”

Beau groaned. 

“No-ott.”

Nott opened her mouth to say something else but Caleb cut her off with a wave of his hand. 

“Well I...I sort of, um, well I wasn’t sure at first, you know Mollymauk is very affectionate with everyone,” he said, “but you know, we’ve been talking more, and I’ll admit though he does...baffle me at times, I do like him, as a person-.”

“But like, do you like him as a friend?” Beau asked, “Or do you... _ like him  _ like him.” 

Caleb took a breath. 

“Well I’m not sure what difference it makes to you,” he said. 

“So yes.” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

“But you implied it.” 

A slight grin was starting to spread across her face. 

“I did n-,” he cut himself off and sighed, “Well, even if there were, you know, romantic sort of feelings there, I don’t think it would work out.” 

“Well why not?” Nott asked, “He knows about your parents and all that, and he didn’t seem to care. And we’re not in the Empire anymore, and I don’t think any of us particularly want to go back, so we’re not in danger anymore.” 

“No, I know, it’s not that,” Caleb said, “We’re just...very different people. He’s such a...well you know, and I’m...well I am myself.”

_ I am myself, and no one should have to put up with that,  _ he finished in his head, not wanting to start another session of his friends saying “Caleb you’re not that bad” and him feeling terrible for fooling them into thinking that.

“Doesn’t mean you couldn’t give it a try,” Beau said, “You’re more alike than you think, so I don’t know. Might surprise you.” 

Caleb scoffed, a touch of bemused affection in his voice. 

“It might,” he said. 

Beau didn’t seem convinced he believed it, but she just sighed and shrugged. 

“Alright, fine,” she said, “But you know...if you ever, like, need a wingman.” 

She crossed her arms and nodded her head upwards in a gesture of inflated confidence. 

“No offense, Beauregard, but you barely have a grasp on your own love life,” Caleb said. 

Beau’s face flushed. 

“What the hell does that mean?!” 

Nott laughed.

* * *

 

 

The inside of the brothel was warm and a little smokey. It was richly decorated with tapestries on the walls and floors, but Molly didn’t have time to appreciate the ambiance. He had a job to do. As he looked at the madame of the house, sitting at the front desk with a bored look on her face, he started running through ideas that would get him in and out before their spell-slinging friend had time to become suspicious. 

_ Should’ve sent one of the girls in,  _ he thought, but it was too late for that now.

He sidled up to the desk and rested his elbows on the antique wood. 

“How can I help you?” the madame asked. 

“Did a blonde Dwendalian woman come in here a few minutes ago?” he asked, “Leather armor, unfriendly scowl.”  

The madame looked at him, one eyebrow raised. Molly just waited, a quiet, disarming smile on his face. Finally she spoke. 

“Who wants to know?” she asked. 

“Just a good samaritan,” he said, “She dropped something on the street, but she came in here before I could get it back to her. She’s not, ah,” he cleared his throat, “busy, is she?”

The madame paused, contemplating her answer, but by the look on her face, Molly had a feeling it would be akin to “get lost.” Time to cheat, then. 

“If you could get let me back, I’ll be two minutes, and then I’ll be out of your hair,” he promised with a flourish of his hand as he let loose just a touch of devilish magic and cast  _ Charm Person _ on the woman, “No funny business.”

There was a second, as the air shimmered around them and went still, where Molly was sure she’d seen through the enchantment, but then her pupils dilated and her face relaxed. She sighed. 

“Alright, but make it quick,” she said. 

He grinned. 

“Thank you so much, my dear,” he said. 

She waved him off as he walked around the counter and behind the heavy curtain that lead to the back of the brothel. Beyond was a long hallway with half a dozen doors spread out along it. The end of the hallway ended in a corner, around which was probably the stairs to the second floor. Molly paused, listening for voices beyond the doors, but realized that wouldn’t get him very far. He didn’t know what Astrid’s voice sounded like, and if she wasn’t here on business then there wouldn’t be much talking going on anyway. 

He paused as a half-elf girl in a slinky dress walked out of one of the middle rooms. She froze, a little startled by his presence. He smiled. 

“Sorry to disturb you, love, but have you seen a blonde woman in armor back here?” he asked, “I have something of hers.” 

She glanced behind him and then behind her down the hall. 

“Um, she went back that way,” she said, pointing to the end of the hall.

“I’m not disturbing anything am I?” 

“I’m not certain, but I don’t think so,” the woman said, “The madame said she just wanted to talk to one of the other girls.” 

“Ah. Thank you,” he said, walking past her. She just nodded and walked off in the opposite direction. 

As he rounded the corner, he came to a set of worn wooden stairs. He paused at the bottom, listening for footsteps or voices, and after a moment he heard the sound of two people near the top of the stairs talking in murmurs. 

“And you haven’t seen him since?” a cold, clipped voice asked. 

“‘Fraid not,” came a second voice, much more warm and casual than the first. 

Molly crept up the first few steps, but couldn’t see beyond the landing. He took a breath, thinking. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to interact with Astrid directly, but from down here he couldn’t see who was talking, and if he went up the stairs to see if it was their target, he would likely be seen. Oh well. There were worse outcomes than her seeing his face for a few minutes. He paused and reached into one of the many pockets in his coat, searching for any random object that could belong to anyone.

“Any chance he’ll come back?” the cold voice asked.

Eventually he settled on a plain pouch that contained a few interesting coins and odd baubles he’d collected in his travels. He removed anything he wasn’t ready to part with, just in case she was the dishonest type who  _ would  _ claim it was hers, and walked up the stairs. 

“I couldn’t tell you that for sure,” the warm voice said, who Molly could now see belonged to a halfling, her dark hair wrapped up in an elaborate knot, and her ears decked out in almost as many piercings as himself, “but if I had to bet, I’d say he’ll be back within a month or so. He’s one of our off-and-on customers.” 

“Excuse me, sorry to interrupt,” he said, pausing a few steps down. 

Astrid, standing a couple feet away from the halfling, was even more frightening up close. He certainly hadn’t imagined the predatory gleam in her eyes yesterday when he saw her in the square. Disdain was gilded into every line in her face, and even as he spoke she didn’t look at him directly, as if his presence were that of a fly buzzing around her face. She looked at her nails, waiting for their pesky interruption to leave.

The halfling frowned when she spotted Molly.

“Hey go back to your room, someone will be along,” she said. 

“You do have a lovely establishment, but I’m not a customer, just passing by. Ma’am is this yours?” Molly asked, looking at Astrid and holding up the pouch, “I thought I saw you drop it outside.”

The halfling gave Astrid a pointed look. Astrid raised one eyebrow and glanced over at Molly. 

“Oh, you’re talking to me,” she said. 

As her eyes took him in, the change in her expression was rapid and immediate. Some of the lines around her mouth relaxed and her eyes widened in shock. One of her hands, held under her crossed arms, curled into a fist. Molly tried not to react. 

_ What, never seen a tiefling before? _

She glanced down at the pouch in his hand and back up at him, the confusion and alarm still clear on her face. 

“No, that’s not mine,” she said. 

“Huh. Eyes must be playing tricks on me,” he said, pocketing the pouch, “You have a lovely day.”

He flashed her a coy smile, bearing his pointed canines, which did seem to unsettle her a bit. It amused him more than it probably should have. Then he turned and walked back down the stairs. As he passed through the front room again, the madame waving goodbye as he slipped out the door, he heard Nott’s anxious voice in his head. 

“Did you find her? What was she doing?” she asked, “You can reply to this message.”

Molly chuckled and walked back into the alley. 

“I found her,” he said. 

“And?” Beau asked. 

“I don’t think she’s here for Caleb. She was talking to one of the girls about someone, but she said he was a regular customer, which obviously doesn’t describe our friend here,” he said, “Must be some other case.” 

“Maybe she’s looking for that one guy, the Hawker,” Beau said.

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about him,” Nott said. 

“I think you’re in the clear, my friend,” Molly said, looking over at Caleb who seemed visibly relieved, even though he was still clutching the edges of his cloak, “Though we’ll still want to be careful.” 

“Yes, of course,” Caleb said, “Did she see you?” 

“Eh, a little?” 

“A little? What does that mean?” 

“Ah, yes. She did.” 

“Was she suspicious at all?” 

“Kind of hard to tell. She made an odd face when she saw me, but I couldn’t tell if it was suspicion or racism. Though I suppose those do go together,” Molly said, “Either way, she’d probably remember me if she saw me again.” 

“Then you should be careful too, keep your head down for a while,” Caleb said. 

“Probably not a bad idea,” Beau agreed. 

“Guess you two are stuck with each other for a while,” Nott said, a mischievous glint in her eye that was hard to read behind her mask. Caleb seemed to know what she meant, though, because he gave her a withering look. 

Molly smiled and put his arm around Caleb’s shoulders. 

“Oh come on, am I so bad to be around?” he asked. 

“I don’t know, I am still deciding,” Caleb replied. 

“Well you’ll have plenty of time to think about it while we’re sitting around in our rooms, bored out of our skulls.” 

“We will have to come up with some sort of excuse as to why we can’t go out,” Caleb mused. 

“Oh that’s easy. We were all out by ourselves today, we all stopped at the same tavern,” Molly said, “Say we shared some kind of strange dish that Beau and Nott didn’t order, and there you have it. Food poisoning.”

Caleb nodded, then furrowed his brow as he thought about it more. 

“That sounds like a good plan,” he said, “But I swear to god, Mollymauk, if you’re going to pull another stunt like the hospital, you better stay far away from me.”

Molly grinned. 

“Whatever you say, love.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna have time to post tomorrow so you get a nice long chapter a day early. Enjoy!

Molly kept his promise, but that didn’t keep Caleb from hearing about the truly terrible scene poor Fjord woke up to. Jester got two sentences in before Caleb decided he didn’t want to know and shut her down. Kiri, however, was more than happy to supply sound effects. After Molly’s theatrics, the others only had to be told Caleb wasn’t feeling well either for them to buy the con. Yep, food poisoning. Made sense. Nott told the others she would stay behind and make sure neither of them died, which was all the encouragement the others needed to abandon ship. And with that, the inn was theirs for the day.

Molly knocked on Caleb and Nott’s door half an hour after the others left, still wearing his rumpled nightshirt that now had a small orange-ish stain near the collar.

“Well that went better than expected,” the tiefling said, leaning against the door frame.

“Better than you egg-spected?” Caleb asked in his usual passive monotone.

The silence in the room was deafening.

“Because you smell like eggs,” he continued.

Molly gave him a pitying look.

“Wow, that _almost_ worked,” he said sadly, “And I know, I’m going to see what this place has for showers."

“I hope you’re going to clean up your and Fjord’s room,” Nott said.

“Oh relax, I didn’t make enough fake vomit to even fill a cup. You all acted like I tried to drown him in it,” Molly said, “Besides it _worked,_ didn’t it?”

“Horrifically so,” Caleb said, “Now go clean yourself up. You can come back when you don’t smell like breakfast.”

“Caleb, dear, I’m very concerned about your idea of breakfast.”

With that, Molly shut the door and walked back down the hall. Caleb walked over to the desk in the corner of the room and sat down. Nott flopped back onto her bed and heaved a sigh. Frumpkin jumped onto the bed next to her and paced around her, purring. Nott gave him a pat on his head and smiled before looking back at Caleb, who had taken one of his books out and opened it on the desk.

“So, what are we supposed to do all day?” she asked.

Caleb shrugged.

“I don’t know, is there anything that needs to be done that we can do from our room?” he asked.

“Not that I can think of,” Nott sighed.

“Maybe we can make up another game or something.”

“Maybe. I’ll try to think of something.”

Caleb turned his attention back to his book. It was an old one that he’d read a hundred times before, but he was feeling a little nostalgic today, and the familiar passages were comforting. After a few minutes, Nott piped up again.

“Oh, how about we try to pickpocket each other. Just for fun,” she said.

“If you managed to lift something off someone in such a small space without being noticed, I would be very impressed,” Caleb said.

“I bet I could do it.”

“I bet you couldn’t.”

“I accept your challenge, good sir,” she said, “Do I get to pick who I’m pickpocketing? Because it’s not really fair if I’m trying to pickpocket you. You’re in on the game.”

“Try to pickpocket Mollymauk then.”

“How long do I get?”

“I’ll give you until the sun goes down,” he said, “and it has to be something on his person.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

Nott thought about it for a second.

“Can it be a sword?” she asked.

Caleb paused and gave her a curious look. He thought about the logistics of pulling off such a heist, and to him at least it didn’t seem possible. But he also wasn’t a goblin with sticky fingers.

“Not sure it can be done, but if he’s wearing them I suppose they’re fair game,” he said.

“Gotcha. Just you watch, Caleb,” she said.

He just smiled and went back to his book. He wasn’t sure how much time passed as he read through the first two chapters. Nott amused herself by throwing a crumpled piece of paper around for Frumpkin. Frumpkin jumped up on the desk a few times, more than happy to walk right in front of Caleb’s face and flick his tail under his nose. That’s where he was when Molly finally poked his head in again.

“Hmm, that seems like an interesting book you’ve got there,” he said as Frumpkin sat down directly on top of the page Caleb was trying to read.

“Yes, it’s very complicated stuff. Very hard to decipher,” he said.

He picked Frumpkin up and put him back down on the ground. His paws had barely touched the ground before he jumped back up on the desk.

“You silly cat, stop that or I will banish you,” Caleb said, pointing at Frumpkin. Frumpkin just rubbed his face against Caleb’s finger. He sighed and looked over at Molly, slightly damp and noticeably better smelling.

“Did you find it?” Caleb asked.

“Down the hall. They actually provide the soap here, and it smells amazing. This place is way nicer than anywhere else we’ve stayed. We need to do this more often,” Molly said, “Mind if I come in?”

“No, please.”

As Molly walked in, Nott zeroed in on him like a wild cat watching a colorful bird that just landed on the forest floor. Immediately her confidence plummeted, and Caleb held back a laugh. Molly wasn’t wearing his coat or his belt, which contained almost everything he carried with him, swords included. All that was left that could feasibly be lifted off of him was his necklace or one of the many pieces of jewelry on his horns. Caleb could practically see Nott seething, but Molly seemed blissfully unaware.

“Molly, do you think you should bring your swords in here?” Nott asked, “You know, just in case something happens?”

“Hm? Like what, a guard comes swinging in through the window?” Molly asked.

“Well I don’t know, maybe. I know she’s not after any of us, but I don’t know, it might be safer to be prepared.”

Molly shrugged.

“‘Spose it couldn’t hurt,” he said, “I’ll be right back.”

He turned and walked out the door. Caleb looked at Nott.

“You know, he’s not going to wear the swords the whole time he’s in here. That would be silly,” he said.

“Hush, this is my challenge, not yours,” Nott said.

A moment later, Molly returned, now wearing his belt and with his scimitars in hand. He put the swords on the floor at the foot of Caleb’s bed.

“Good enough,” he said, sitting down on the bed, “So, what are we up to?”

Nott’s face twitched as she tried not to outright _glare_ at Molly. Frumpkin rubbed up against Caleb’s face again, which he used to hide the smile breaking across his face.

“Nothing I guess,” Nott said.

“Is that the theme of the day, then?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure yet.”

“Well that was delightfully cryptic. Caleb, you have an extra book?”

“Not any interesting ones. Most of my books are reference materials.”

“Oh, that’s perfect. It goes with the theme."

Caleb dug into his bag, found a book about identifying different plants, and passed it to Molly. Molly laid back on the bed and started flipping through the book. Nott grabbed Frumpkin and started tossing the paper ball around for him again. The room went quiet, save for the rustling of paper and padding of paws, as they all settled into their boredom together.

* * *

 

Nott was acting weird. Weirder than usual, anyway. For a while Molly hadn’t really noticed. He’d been too busy trying to occupy himself with something, _anything,_ short of backflipping out the window. Then he actually started talking to her.

At some point he started chewing on his cuticles (a bad habit he’d never really been able to get over), got a little too into it, and started bleeding. This simple misstep got him thinking, and well...if the circus had taught him anything, it was that there was no better cure for boredom than performing stupid and potentially dangerous experiments.

Experiment one: touch the bedframe with his now bleeding ring finger and see if it started glowing. Experiment one: failure.

“What are you doing?” Nott had asked.

“Testing something.”

“Testing what?”

“I’m curious if I can only activate my blood rites on things I actually cut myself on, or if blood just has to get _on_ it. So far, it looks like the former.”

“Wait, where is the blood coming from? Did you get a papercut or something?”

“No, just picking at my nails.”

“Maybe you need to cut yourself with an actual blade first. Or maybe you need more blood.”

“Don’t think so. I’ve cut myself on non-bladed objects before and made it work. Maybe the latter.”

“Might be worth experimenting. I mean if there’s some kind of weird emergency or you get into trouble, you should know what you can and can’t do. Come over here.”

Experiment two: prick finger with one of Nott’s daggers and touch bedframe. Experiment two: failure. Experiment three: use more blood. This time, after cutting his arm, putting some blood on his hand, and touching the bed frame again, the experiment was a success. Light erupted from the post where he touched it and quickly engulfed the whole frame. Molly was a little surprised. He’d always thought the cutting had to be part of the rite, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. It was only the blood that was important. Nott was immediately filled with new ideas for experiments

“Let’s see if you can do the glowing thing on a person!” Nott said.

Caleb piped up from across the room.

“Absolutely not.”

It was around that time Molly noticed Nott’s weird behavior.

She seemed to be watching him constantly, but not because they were experimenting with his abilities. She was watching his movements, studying him. When he wasn’t looking directly at her, he could see her moving out of the corner of his eye, leaning in weird ways or holding her hands up for no apparent reason. Whenever he looked directly at her, though, she started acting completely normal again. He couldn’t actually catch her doing...well doing _anything_ overtly weird, but he knew _something_ was up. Sometimes he even caught Caleb watching Nott, an unreadable expression on his face somewhere between curiosity and amusement. Molly hid his suspicion and tried to act as casual as possible, but the whole thing confused him.

After trying and failing to conduct experiment number five without Caleb noticing, which was to see if Nott cut Molly with her nails if he could make her glow, Molly got up and said he should probably wash the blood off his hands and arms. He walked out into the hallway, but stayed by the door, listening.

“Well, did you do it?” Caleb asked.

Nott sighed.

“No. He kept looking at me before I could do anything,” she said.

“You’ve only got half the day left, you better get busy.”

“It’s not as easy as it looks, ok!”

“That’s funny, you seemed very confident in your abilities earlier,” Caleb said.  

“Well...yes, ok, but I really thought he’d be wearing his coat or something. It’s a lot easier to lift things out of pockets,” Nott argued.

“A poor excuse.”

“You didn’t tell him, did you? Because that would be cheating if you did.”

“Nott, you’ve been with at least one of us the whole time.”

“Fine, fine, whatever.”

“You know it’s ok to admit defeat, there’s no shame.”

“Shut up, Caleb.”

Molly couldn’t help but smile. Did they have a bet going or something? It was really tempting to ruin it for one of them, and he continued to mull over the merits of letting one of them win over the other even after he completed his hand-washing ruse and returned to the room. By the time they all decided to go down to the pub downstairs to get some food, he still hadn’t decided.

In the end, he didn’t get a chance to. In that span of time it took for the bartender to bring their food to their table and tell them to holler if they needed anything else, Molly was well distracted, and when he turned his attention back to Nott, it was too late. He knew by the look on her face that she had gotten him, even before she held up the pouch she’d lifted off his belt and grinned.

“Caleb,” she said.

Molly sighed.

“Goddammit,” he muttered.

Caleb looked up from his food. The moment his eyes landed on the pouch, a little bit of his soul left his body. He sighed.

“I think that is cheating,” he said.

“What?! How so?”

“Well you took that down here, in a crowded place, and we specifically talked about you pickpocketing him in our room. We both know you can pickpocket someone in a crowd.”

“No, you told me I had the day to try and pickpocket him. You never said _where!”_

“I thought my comment about small spaces implied our room.”

“No, it didn’t!”

“At the very least you got half way there,” Molly said, “I’ll admit I didn’t notice you take it. Speaking of which.”

He held his hand out. Nott sighed and handed the pouch back. Molly smiled.

“Thank you.”

“I think I nailed it,” Nott continued.

“No, I’m not convinced,” Caleb said.

Nott sighed.

“Fine. I’ll do it again. When the others get back, I’ll try again, and _this_ time, you’ll have to acknowledge my...my _mad skills_ ,” she said.

Molly laughed. Nott looked at him.

“And you better not breathe a word of this to anyone,” she said.

“Long as you don’t actually steal from anyone, I won’t say a word,” Molly said.

They ate their food in comfortable silence, making occasional small talk and watching the other patrons of the bar. The sun grew lower and lower in the sky, turning the light in the pub a warm golden color. After a bit, most of the other late lunch patrons had left, leaving them alone save for a few day-drinkers up at the bar. Nott finished her food and stood up.

“I think I’m going to walk around outside. Just to make sure everything’s still safe. No bandits or anything lurking around,” she said.

“Alright,” Caleb said, finishing off his own food.

“I won’t be long,” she said.

With that she walked out the front door and into the soft afternoon light. Molly and Caleb left payment for the food on the table and walked back upstairs. Back in the room, Molly sat back down on Caleb’s bed. He watched as Caleb sat back down at the desk and was immediately assailed by Frumpkin, yet again. Caleb sighed and set him down on the ground, which did nothing to deter the cat.

“Alright, you’re going away for now,” Caleb said. He snapped his fingers, and Frumpkin disappeared.

“Where do you suppose he goes when you do that?” Molly asked.

“The Feywild I believe,” Caleb said.

“Huh. By the way, you can have your plant book back,” Molly said, passing the book back to Caleb.

“Did you find at least one interesting thing in it?” Caleb asked, “Or were you bored silly the whole time?”

“Mostly the latter. Although, I did learn I’ve been calling bellflowers the wrong thing this whole time.”

Caleb smiled.

“What do you call them?”

“I thought they were lilies.”

“Lilies?”

Molly shrugged.

“No one ever corrected me,” he said. He paused a moment, a thoughtful expression on his face, “The things I don’t know are really random sometimes. It’s like any knowledge I didn’t use much before just disappeared completely. Like my knowledge of which flowers are which, for example.”

“Obviously you were not a florist in your past life.”

Molly smiled.

“No, obviously not, although that doesn’t sound like such a bad profession.”

He paused and tilted his head, looking at the book Caleb had open on the desk.

“That the same book you were reading earlier?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s a book I’ve had for a long time.”

“Come here, tell me about it.”

He patted the space on the bed next to him. Caleb paused a moment, a look on his face as if his mind hadn’t quiet processed the sentence. Regardless, he picked up the book and joined Molly on the bed. He folded his legs under him and sat the book on his lap. The pages were yellowing and the corners were worn, but that was the least of the problems plaguing the poor thing. On the back cover, going through about a third of the pages, was a small hole. Molly laughed.

“What happened there?” he asked.

“Oh, do you remember that job we did out in the swamps a few months ago?” Caleb asked, “Do you remember the goblins and the ogres that attacked us on the road?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“This is the book Nott shot.”

“Gotcha,” Molly chuckled, “I don’t think I actually saw that happen, but I certainly heard about it from Jester. One of these days you need to let the rest of us in on your and Nott’s cons.”

“There’s...quite a few.”

“I’m sure between the seven of us we can keep track,” Molly said, “Anyway. Tell me about the book.”

“Oh I’ve had this book for years,” Caleb said, “It’s actually the first thing I ever stole.”

“That does not surprise me in the least.”

“I, ah, took it with me when I escaped the asylum. There wasn’t much to do there, and I probably read this book a hundred times at least. I got a bit attached to it, I suppose.”

“Huh. What’s it about?”

“It’s not anything special, just a fairytale of sorts about a knight who is exiled from his kingdom traveling the wilderness, saving villages from monsters and the like. The king asks him to come back to deal with a giant - and there’s a lot that happens between that and the end, court politics and such - but in the end he and the other knights do kill the giant. You know, happily ever after and all that.”

“Spoilers, Caleb.”

“What? Did you want to read it?”

“I’m not much of a reader, but I don’t know. Sounds like an interesting story.”

Then every drop of light in the room was snuffed out.

Molly’s hands flew to his side for his swords, and in the same second he realized he didn’t have them. Then he remembered he’d set his swords on the floor earlier. He’d never been so grateful for Nott’s paranoia in his life. He felt Caleb shift next to him and mutter an incantation, but the magic didn’t take hold. The deep darkness around them consumed the light of the spell before it even had a chance to take effect. Molly stood up, every muscle tense and ready to strike if anything came near him. He strained to hear anything, a weapon being drawn or a spell firing, but he heard only the creaking of the wooden floor and his own breathing. Then the door opened.

He felt Caleb flinch and stand up next to him, but the wizard seemed to think twice about blindly hurling a fireball in a wooden building. Molly took a tentative step forward, his hand passing through the air as he tried to avoid running into anything. Or anyone.

“Nott?” Caleb whispered.

“No, not quite.”

Molly froze. He recognized the voice instantly. She was here. She was here, how was she here? He took another step towards the last place he remembered his swords being and winced when the floor groaned.

“Please don’t do anything rash, now. I’d rather settle this peacefully,” Astrid said.

“Best tell us what you want, then,” Molly said.

He heard a creak in the floor and flinched. It seemed to come from near the door, traveling near the edge of the room. Based on that and the sound of her voice, it seemed she was on the other side of the room, heading towards the other bed. Of course, that information would only be helpful when he could actually attack her.

“You know, I’m surprised at you, Nonagon. Or was it Lucien? Your friends could never quite keep that straight.

The names were like a crack of thunder in the small space. Immediately he could feel the adrenaline, like lightning shooting through his veins. No, no no no, how was this possible? She-. _Him?_ She couldn’t be after-. No. No this was all wrong. Blood rushed in his ears, enough to make his head throb, and he barely processed that Astrid was still speaking.

“Well, no matter. Either way, I would have expected a man with your particular skill set to be more discreet,” she said, “Unless, of course, you’ve been expecting me.”

Another creak. A sharp incantation from Caleb. The roar of flames, and a subsequent burst on the other side of the room. A flurry of footsteps. Molly dove forward towards the foot of the bed and heard the clatter of metal as his hand hit the hilt of one of his swords. It took him only a moment to grab them, but it was a moment too late. He heard Astrid shout something, and he dove forward as far as he could. He heard a burst of magical energy behind him, but had no way of knowing where the spell hit of if it had even been close to him. His mouth felt dry as he scrambled to his feet and dragged one of his blades across his forearm. He heard another bolt of fire explode on the floor. The scimitar glowed brightly as Astrid ended the darkness spell and the warm afternoon light came flooding back into the room all at once.

And there she was. Nearly on top of him, hands crackling with energy, eyes cold and focused as she zeroed in on her target. He barely managed to duck out of the way as she made an attempt to grab him. Electricity exploded from her hand as she stumbled forward and made contact with the wall. He struck out at her with one sword, but the blow was clumsy and only grazed her armor. Still, it was enough to make her jump back, make her hesitate. He felt that familiar surge of power in his veins, and for a second through all his fumbling panic, he reached a moment of icy calm.

His second strike hit, slashing through her torso. She flinched and cried out, but it sounded more like frustration than pain. Molly glanced behind her at Caleb who looked as shaken as Molly felt. His hands were out, a few curls of smoke still drifting from his palms. For a moment he stood frozen and indecisive, and Molly could only imagine what kinds of thoughts were running through his head. He snapped out of it quickly, however, and threw three gleaming darts of energy at Astrid. His movements were clean and bore no signs of hesitation, but his eyes betrayed fear and doubt.

As the darts exploded against Astrid’s back, she spun around and hurled a bolt of flickering blue magic at him. He jumped out of the way, and where it shattered against the wall, frost grew in the cracks in the wood. Molly sliced his other arm with his unactivated sword and charged her again, swearing as his strikes only seemed to graze her. She was fast. Caleb seemed to have the same thought. As soon as he regained his footing, he reached into a pouch on his belt and smeared a drop of a thick, dark liquid on his palm and muttered something under his breath.

Astrid’s eyes flew to Caleb as the air shimmered around her. The air swirled, she glared at him and grit her teeth, and the magic dispersed. Caleb’s eyes widened. Astrid’s hand flew to her side and she drew a long dagger, one of many on a belt Molly didn’t remember her wearing before, and charged. Panic coursed through Molly, and without a second thought he extended his hand and felt a stab of pain in his neck as blood poured from the red eye tattooed there. The blood curse took effect, and a sharp gasp of surprise escaped Astrid as her eyes clouded over. Her dagger came down, but only hit air as Caleb darted out of the way.

Molly charged her, and she spun around at the sound of his footsteps. Black blood seeped from the corners of her eyes, creating dark trails down her flushed cheeks. She took a step back as Molly struck at her with his swords, but it wasn’t enough. The swords carved through her torso, and she stumbled backwards, catching herself on the other bed. She gritted her teeth and kicked at Molly, her foot connecting with his stomach and forcing him to take a step back. She wiped the blood out of her eyes just as Caleb released another volley of magic missiles at her. She threw her hands up, conjuring a forcefield moments before the darts made impact. Then her attention was back on Molly.

As Molly made another strike, she thrust her dagger forward, catching the scimitar’s blade against the dagger’s hilt. He stabbed at her with his second sword, but she twisted to the side. Her other hand came down and grasped his wrist, and with that the two of them reached a momentary standstill.

“You’re a bit rusty,” Astrid said.

_“And you’re a bitch,”_ he hissed in Infernal, casting _Vicious Mockery_ at her.

She sneered in disgust, but the spell didn’t seem to bother her otherwise. In fact, a cruel smile was spreading across her face. With a sharp flourish of her dagger, she twisted Molly’s wrist and sent the sword in his left hand clattering to the ground. He felt her grip tighten on his wrist. He tensed, ready to move, but neither of them got the chance to act.

A bolt of fire exploded on the floor between them, and they both jumped away. Astrid darted to the side towards Caleb, then spun around to look at him, anger burning in her eyes.

“I’ve had enough of you,” she hissed.

She rushed forward, hand outstretched. Molly lunged at her with his remaining sword, but couldn’t move fast enough. She curled her left hand into a fist and punched Caleb in the face once before striking him in the chest with her palm. He grabbed onto her wrist, his breath catching in his throat. For a moment they stood still, neither of them moving, locked in some kind of battle Molly couldn’t see. Then Caleb’s eyes went wide, his fingers twitched, and the fear in his eyes turned to panic. Dark purple veins began snaking up his neck as his body went limp and he slid to the floor, unable to act.

Astrid’s gaze lingered on him for a split second, but Molly didn’t take time to read her expression. He swung his remaining scimitar at her, a light blow meant more to distract than harm, and darted forward to grab his fallen sword. As his hand closed around the hilt, he heard Astrid utter an incantation and swing her hand towards him. He felt a rush of cold air on his skin as a bolt of shining blue ice flew at him, struck his side, and exploded into dozens of tiny shards.

The pain was very unlike anything he’d ever felt before. It carried more than just the stinging sharpness of a blade; each wound the ice inflicted _burned,_ and when the initial shock faded, his whole torso started to ache. He swore and staggered back. He nearly dropped to one knee, his vision swimming for a second as he fought through the searing cold spreading through his muscles, but he managed to stay upright. He glanced over at Caleb who still laid paralyzed near the door, still fighting and failing to dispel whatever enchantment Astrid had placed on him. His face was twisted into a mixture of fear and anger at his inability to do anything, and Molly could see how hard he was straining to break free.

_We can’t win like this._

They needed to get out.

He raised his hand and felt a sharp stab of pain in his shoulder as a small red spot stained his shirt as blood leaked from the red eye hidden in the flower tattoo on his shoulder. Astrid took a step towards him, but stopped immediately as the blood seeping from her wounds turned black and hard against her skin. Rage flared in her eyes as her limbs began to seize up.

“There, see how you like it,” Molly spat, masking the jolt of dread and shock that went through him as Astrid became paralyzed where she stood. This curse was unfamiliar, but the instincts that had dragged it up to the surface felt as natural as breathing. For a moment it frightened him, but he had no time to dwell on it.

On the ground behind her, Caleb sucked in a sharp breath as her spell released its hold on him. Molly sheathed one sword and ran towards him, grabbing his arm and pulling him to his feet.

“Up up up, that won’t hold forever,” he said, practically dragging Caleb out into the hallway.

After a few seconds Caleb found his footing again and the two of them tore down the hall and down the stairs.

“We have to find Nott,” Caleb said.

“Agreed,” Molly said.

They passed by several frightened customers wondering what all the noise was, some of whom tried to stop them and ask what was going on. They pushed past them without a word and raced out the door and into the street. They hesitated for a moment, and Molly wracked his brain trying to figure out where Nott would have gone exactly. Neither of them had to think for long, however, before they heard the sounds of a scuffle in the alley nearby.

When they turned the corner they were greeted by Nott shrieking curses at two men in armor that bore all the stylistic traits of the Dwendalian Empire save for the crest itself. One man had her restrained well enough to keep her from running, but couldn’t hold her still long enough for the other man to get a pair of handcuffs on her. They both froze as Caleb and Molly entered the alley.

Nott immediately sunk her small, dagger-like teeth into the hand of the man with the cuffs. The man screamed and yanked his hand away. Molly charged him as Caleb slung a fire bolt at the man still holding onto Nott. He lost his grip on her as soon as the bolt made impact. In an instant she was on him, driving a dagger into his neck. Molly struck the other man twice with his swords, and that was all the encouragement the man needed to turn tail and run.

Molly released a breath before turning towards Nott. He opened his mouth to tell her not to kill the other guard, but it was too late. The man slumped to the ground, blood pouring from his throat. Molly sighed.

“Well we’re not getting anything out of that guy,” he said.

Nott wiped off her dagger and looked at him and Caleb.

“What happened, are you two ok?” she asked, her eyes darting back and forth between them.

“Astrid. She found us,” Caleb said, finally pausing and allowing himself to breathe.

“What?! I thought she wasn’t after you!”

“She wasn’t.”

Nott frowned, brow furrowing in confusion. She looked at Molly, a question hanging on her lips, but she stopped when she noticed the wound in his side.

“Oh my god, what did she do?! We need to go find Jester,” she said.

Molly waved her off.

“No time to worry about that. She’ll be on us again any second,” he said.

The sound of footsteps and clattering armor echoed down the alley. A distant voice shouted, “This way!” Molly swore.

“I’ll hold them off,” Nott said.

“No, absolutely not,” Caleb said.

“I’ll just draw them away, I won’t actually fight them,” she said, “Soon as I can I’ll give them the slip, ok? Just go!”

“If you think I’m going to just leave you here for-.”

The footsteps grew louder. Molly grabbed Caleb’s hand.

“No time to argue,” he said. He looked at Nott, “Be careful. Don’t fight Astrid.”

“What?! No, Mollymauk-,” Caleb protested, but his concerns went unheard.

Nott looked at Molly and nodded. Then Molly started dragging Caleb back out into the street, away from the inn. Caleb glanced back at Nott and quickly snapped his fingers, causing Frumpkin to reappear on her shoulder, before turning and following Molly. Behind them Molly heard Nott start shouting and talking to herself, pretending she was still talking to them, before darting down a different side street. He didn’t look back to see if it worked. They would know soon enough.

“I swear to god if anything happens to her-,” Caleb hissed.

“She’ll be fine. She’s slippery,” Molly said.

“Those guards had her in a headlock!”

“They probably got the drop on her first, and she wasn’t exactly giving them an easy time of it. She’s a big girl, she can handle herself.”

Caleb huffed but didn’t say anything else. They turned down an alley, barely slowing their pace as they darted around corners and jumped over puddles.

“So where are we going?” Caleb asked.

“No idea.”

“Let’s head for the docks. There’ll be fewer people around when the sun goes down.”

“No arguments here.”

Eventually they reached a tiny courtyard in the center of a cluster of houses. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and a fresh ache was spreading through Molly’s torso. He grimaced and came to a stop.

“Hold on,” he breathed, bracing himself against a building, “Hold on.”

Caleb stopped and upon seeing the grimace on Molly’s face, immediately came back.

“Sit down,” he commanded.

“No, we can’t stop here,” Molly said, “I just need a moment to catch my breath.”

Caleb went to his side and lifted up his shirt. He winced when he saw the wound - a deep puncture surrounded by many smaller cuts and punctures, all surrounded by tinges of frostbite - but it was hard to tell how bad it really was with all the blood caked around it.

“Honestly, Caleb, I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks,” Molly said. He sucked another breath in, “Hurts like a motherfucker though.”

“I wish there was something I could do, if I had some supplies or something,” Caleb muttered.

“We’ll find something at the docks,” Molly said, “What about you, are you alright? What did she do to you?”

“I’m not sure,” Caleb breathed, “It felt like some kind of necromancy, but that’s nowhere near my forte.”

The purple veins that appeared on Caleb’s neck still lingered, but they were fading to more of a maroon color. By nightfall they would probably be gone completely. Still, the sight was worrying to look at. Caleb sighed and shook his head.

“I am sorry about all that,” he murmured.

“Sorry for what?”

“I think we could have taken her but…” he paused and frowned, “but I could not bring myself to really hurt her. I know I could have, but…”

“Hey, we got out. That’s all that matters.”

Molly took another deep breath and straightened up.

“Ok, let’s keep going,” he said.

The concern never left Caleb’s face, but he didn’t argue, and the two of them hurried back into the alleys and side streets of the city. After some time, traveling down twisting paths and stopping every once in a while to listen for pursuers, they concluded they’d managed to shake them. They were safe, at least for now.

The sun had nearly disappeared by the time they reached the docks, and the air was rapidly growing cold. All the boats were moored, the boat sheds and fish hawkers’ stalls all dark. Any people who still remained were too far away to be concerned about. Caleb looked around for a place for them to hide, and after a moment he pointed out a shed  out of the immediate view of passers by that stood nestled between a tackle shop and the edge of a short canal. They slipped between it and the shop, out of range of the lanterns along the pier.

The door was locked, but the small window was all too easy to jimmy open, and before long they were inside among the tarps and nets and fishing lures. Caleb immediately sank onto a large crate, his forearms resting on his knees. Molly just sat on the floor and leaned against the door of the shed. His side still ached, but the pain was turning into a tolerable throb. He appreciated the distraction it provided. It was better than thinking about what just happened.

Lucien. Nonagon? _That_ man. Again. Even here, in a city miles and miles away from the Empire.

_Why can’t this bastard just stay dead?_

Even after the heat and sweat from running started to fade, and his muscles started to relax, his heart continued to pound. There wasn’t enough air in the shack, it seemed. The dust that hung around them was suffocating. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his forehead on his forearms. He tried taking a deep breath, but it did little to quell the panic building up inside him.

Would this happen _everywhere_ he went? How many more people would he have to face who thought he owed them something just because of the face he shared with another? Every time he heard that name, thought about what Cree said to him back in Zadash, used his abilities in a new but eerily familiar way, it was like something shifted inside him. It was like he was standing on the edge of a forest fire, and something deep inside the smoldering trees had thrown a line out to him and dug its hooks into his flesh. And as time went on, the line pulled tighter and tighter, drawing him back into the chaos, threatening to consume him and burn him away. Would he ever be allowed to just _move on?_

Caleb looked up and frowned.

“Mollymauk,” he said.

The sound of his name felt so sweet coming from Caleb. In his deep, Zemnian lilt it sounded smooth and rich, gentle like a flowing stream. He clung to it, repeating it to himself in his head like a prayer until the name of that _other_ person, that man who as far as he was concerned was still rotting in the woods somewhere, was purged from his mind. He almost didn’t notice when Caleb walked over and sat next to him.

“I know it’s...useless to ask how you know her,” Caleb murmured.

“I don’t know her,” Molly said, digging his nails into his arms.

“Or how she knows you, as the case may be,” Caleb finished, “I wish I knew something about it, but I don’t.”

Molly sighed and raised his head.

“I think I have an idea. Cree mentioned there was a woman from the capital two years ago,” he said.

“Ah. Yes, that would make sense.”

“Hell of a coincidence.”

Caleb nodded.

“You’re right about that,” he said.

“You think she was holding back?”

“Yes, I do. She’s had years to practice her craft. If she wanted us dead, she could have done it.”

Molly snorted.

“Lucky us,” he said, “Well, one good thing that came out of this: I don’t think she recognized you.”

“I...I am not so sure,” Caleb said, “At the very least, she has questions.”

“Those questions will turn to doubt easily enough if we can keep her off your tail.”

Caleb gave Molly a sad but affectionate smile.

“I think you’ve got your priorities a little upside-down,” he said.

“Since when are my priorities rightside-up?”

Caleb’s smile faded. He sighed and looked at his hands.

“She may tell the Empire about you, you know,” he said, “Or she may not. We have no way of knowing what she’ll do now that she knows you’re alive. She could let you go, or she might put a bounty on your head.”

“Whatever you’re trying to say, Caleb, just say it.”

“I’m saying that...I know you are trying to leave whoever you were before behind,” Caleb said, “and I respect that. I did not want to pry before, because frankly there was no need to. You are who you are, and whoever Nonagon or Lucien or whoever was has no bearing on that. But I think...I think we need to think practically about this. We can’t make a plan if we don’t know what happened two years ago.”

“Yes we can,” Molly said, “We can…”

He trailed off and shook his head.

“No. If I stay with you, all of us will be in danger,” he said. He took a breath and stood up. He crossed his arms, facing away from Caleb. “I can...I can pack up and skip town tomorrow first chance I get and get as far from here as possible. The rest of you head off in the opposite direction, and we pray she loses us both.”

“And if someone somewhere else recognizes you? If someone else catches up to you? What will you do then? We barely escaped Astrid, I can only imagine what another person with abilities like yours might be capable of.”

His shoulders tensed. Of course he’d thought about that. The thought made his mouth go dry and his fingers tremble. Traveling the roads - just him, his swords, and the dregs of thoughts and memories best left unexplored - was a fate he’d been desperate to avoid, but what else was left? Intentionally causing harm to those who didn’t deserve it went against everything he was trying to be, and if he stayed, he stayed knowing that his presence could bring pain and hardship to this group of people he’d come to love despite all their many, _many_ flaws. He would stomach the panic, the loneliness, the considerable risk, he’d deal with all of it if it meant those people would be safe.

“Then I’ll deal with it if it comes to that. Caleb, this isn’t hard,” he said, taking another deep breath and running his hand through his hair, “The best thing for me to do right now is to leave. The rest of you don’t need to get caught up in my bullshit. None of you deserve that.”

“Mollymauk, you don’t have a monopoly on bullshit,” Caleb said, standing as well, “She’ll be after me as well once she figures out who I am, and she will figure it out.”

“You’re free to join me, you know,” Molly said. He looked over his shoulder and gave Caleb a cheeky smile, “We’ll live on the road, on the run from the law.”

“Dealing with this, dealing with Lucien and everything that comes with him, does not mean you will lose yourself.”

Molly’s face darkened as he turned to face Caleb fully.

“What if you’re wrong?” he asked.

“Simply knowing something won’t make you snap.”

“How can you be sure? Did you see what I did back there? To Astrid? I paralyzed her, Caleb” Molly said, “I’ve never used a blood curse to do that before. _Ever._ These... _abilities_ that I have, the more I fight, the more start coming back. Little by little, I’m discovering new and horrible things I can do. And why stop there? Maybe I learn what happened two years ago, and those memories start coming back too. Maybe I remember what I was really trying to do. Maybe I decide that’s more important than anything I’ve built here. Maybe you get hurt. Do you want to risk that? Because I certainly don’t.”

Caleb paused, a thoughtful look on his face. He shook his head.

“That won’t happen,” he said.

“Oh, what makes you so certain?”

“Because you are so afraid of it,” Caleb said, “I know you don’t want to be that person again. I know the thought terrifies you. That has to mean something. This person that you are now is someone you’ve built from the ground up in only two years, free of whatever expectations or ideas were placed on you before. You are more yourself now than that other person was two years ago, and if I were that person...if I were that person I would want to hang onto that. I know I would give anything to be the person I was before I convinced myself that person wasn’t good enough.”

It surprised him. He was so ready to throw whatever Caleb had to say back in his face, find the “gotcha” in his attempt to make this all seem ok. But Caleb’s genuineness, the warmth in his voice and on his face, burned away any counter arguments Molly could have made. They all withered and died on his tongue. He chuckled in spite of himself.

“Wow, you really believe that, don’t you,” he said. He looked down at the floor as tears started to prick behind his eyes.

Caleb nodded.

“Yes. I do, Molly,” he said.

Molly smiled, unable to stop his eyes from watering. Warmth spread through his stomach and across his face. He crushed his palm against his eyes, trying and failing to stop himself from crying.

“God, fuck you. Fuck you, Caleb,” he said, “You stupid, beautiful bastard.”  

Caleb took a step forward and wrapped his arms around Molly, crushing him against his chest. Molly squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in Caleb’s shoulder, completely melting into the hug. He wrapped his arms around Caleb as tears began streaking down his face in ernest.

“This is all your fault,” he muttered.

“Oh hush,” Caleb whispered.

They stood there for what felt like an eternity, but Molly still wasn’t ready for it to end by the time Caleb finally relaxed his grip and took a step back.

“We should take care of your wound,” he said.

“Afraid I’ll bleed out in your arms?” Molly teased.

“Do not even joke about that,” Caleb said, though there was a touch of amusement on his voice.

He started looking through the supplies in the shed while Molly searched for some water to clean up the blood. As he looked on shelves and around crates for even a mop bucket, he spotted a glass bottle half full of a golden-brown liquid. He uncorked it, and as he brought it near his nose, he was immediately hit by the sour smell of cheap whiskey.

“Good news and bad news,” he said, “Good news, I have found a liquid that is clean and also drinkable. Bad news, it’s going to hurt a lot.”

“I have good news too,” Caleb said, rummaging around in a tackle box, “I found thread and needles. Bad news, the needles are not needles. They are fishhooks.”

Molly cringed.

“Oh this is going to suck,” he said. Then he took a swig of the whiskey and sat down. Caleb conjured a light and joined him.

There was no way to make the sting of the booze or the bite of the fishhook any better short of knocking himself unconscious, but Caleb’s hands were steady, and even when he wasn’t as gentle as he could have been, he at least worked quickly. Molly distracted himself by cleaning up the blood on his neck and arms. As Molly predicted, it wasn’t as bad as it looked once they cleaned it up, but he was sure he would have a new scar there once it healed.

“I’ve got so many lines all over my body, it’ll be nice to have something different,” he said as Caleb cut the fishing line he’d been using to stitch Molly up.

“Between the scars and the tattoos, soon you won’t have any skin left,” Caleb said.

“That’s alright with me. A scar or a tattoo’s more interesting to look at anyway,” Molly said, “Speaking of which, bring that light of yours a little closer. I want to check something.”

He leaned over and pulled down the collar of Caleb’s tunic. Caleb’s face flushed immediately.

“Um…” he started.

“Don’t get too excited, I just want to see if those strange veins are gone yet.”

He felt relieved initially, as the purple veins from Astrid’s spell had disappeared completely from Caleb’s neck. However, along his sternum where Astrid struck him, was a fading palm-print, much like a bruise. Molly frowned.

“She got you good,” he said, “It doesn’t hurt at all, does it?”

“No, I don’t feel it at all. I’m sure the mark will be gone by morning.”

Molly released him and sat back against the wall of the shed. Caleb extinguished the lights, set the tackle box and the alcohol aside, and sat back as well. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second, taking in the soft lapping of the tide against the pier outside and the whisper of the wind through the cracks in the shed. Still feeling a little jittery, Molly picked up the whiskey bottle and took another swig, hoping it would calm his nerves. He tapped his fingers against the bottle.

“Have you ever called me just Molly before?” he asked.

“Mm?” Caleb murmured, opening one eye.

“It’s just, I don’t remember you ever calling me anything other than Mollymauk. You’re not usually so familiar.”

“Oh,” Caleb closed his eye again and shifted, trying to feign being casual, but Molly could see a touch of red in his cheeks, “Must have been a slip.”

Molly just smiled. He took another swig from the bottle and put it down. He leaned his head back on the wall and took a few deep breaths. He concentrated on the sound of the ocean until the anxiety finally began to loosen its grip on him. After a few minutes, Caleb opened his eyes again and sighed.

“Beau told me something funny yesterday,” he murmured, “She said you and I were more alike than I thought. I am not so sure about that.”

Molly raised an eyebrow.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Well,you are trying to leave your past behind, I’m trying to fix mine. You’re a...a filthy extrovert, and I get anxiety just ordering food,” Caleb continued.

Molly laughed.

“Filthy, am I?”

“Well, ok, no, I-.”

Molly waved at him to stop and smiled.

“No, I know what you meant,” he said.

He paused and shrugged.

“Anyway, you’re probably right,” he said, “Day and night, honestly. Though, I don’t know. I think there are some things we can both agree on.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t think either of us want to be the person we were before,” Molly said, “I think we both want to do right by people and believe there are people out there worth trusting. Maybe the way we go about things is different, but I suppose if we both get to the same place in the end, what’s it matter?”

Caleb smiled softly.

“I suppose that’s true,” he said, his eyes slowly closing again.

“Where’d all that come from?”

“Oh, nowhere. Just thinking...”

“Sound like interesting thoughts.”

“No not really. Nothing you’d care to hear about.”

Molly couldn’t hide his smile. Caleb took a deep breath and sighed.

“You’re also a good person, Mollymauk,” he murmured.

Molly’s smile slipped a hair, but he kept his tone bright.

“Well, as good a person as you can be doing jobs for a wanted smuggler, but yes, that’s another way we’re similar,” he said.

Caleb smiled briefly, but his heart didn’t seem in it. There was a moment of silence as they sat in the dark. Caleb’s breathing slowed for a moment before he shook himself awake again.

“You tired?” Molly asked.

“Very.”

“Get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye out for anything.”

“We should head back to the inn before morning, while the streets are still empty. We need to find the others.”

“The night’s still young. A few hours of rest won’t hurt. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”

“Alright.” 

He closed his eyes again and leaned his head back against the wall. He shifted around for a few seconds, trying to find a comfortable position. Molly sighed.

“Oh come here,” he said.

He put his hand on Caleb’s cheek and guided his head onto his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Caleb muttered, already sounding half asleep.

“No, darling, thank you.”


	4. Chapter 4

Molly woke him up a few hours later. Caleb’s mouth felt dry, and his shoulders felt stiff, but at least some of the fog had cleared from his head. It felt good to shut his brain off for a little while. He felt like he hadn’t had a moment of silence inside his own head since yesterday. If he wasn’t worrying about himself, he was worrying about the others, Molly most of all. How had their situation managed to go from “worrying but manageable” to “overwhelmingly dangerous” in only a few minutes?

_Explaining all of this to everyone else is going to be fun,_ he thought.

They collected themselves and put the shed back together as best they could, though he doubted anything would hide the watery blood stains on the ground or the fact that most of the whiskey they’d found was gone. Molly wedged a gold piece into the bottle’s cork “for their troubles,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking, and honestly I don’t think the others will be there when we get back,” Molly said as Caleb opened the door, “If they found Nott and she told them what happened, they wouldn’t risk sticking around. If Astrid found us, she could find them too.”

Caleb nodded.

“I know,” he said, “but there is no other common place all of us know about. At the very least, they may have left some kind of message.”

“Right, I know. I just want to make sure we’re managing our expectations.”

“We can check the windows when we get there. If there are lights on, I’ll try to send a message. If not, we find somewhere to hide until morning.”

Molly nodded, but didn’t say anything else. With their best and only plan in place, they left the shed and walked out into the frigid night air.

Finding their way back to the inn from the docks was a long process, and only Caleb’s photographic memory kept them from getting completely lost in the dark, winding streets. No one else appeared. No candles were lit in the windows. Many lanterns weren’t lit either. Above them the sky was clear and thousands of stars were visible, untouched by even the slightest light from the sun. In the dead of the night they could really feel winter’s grip on the coast. It beat the Empire’s constant wind and snow any day, but without his coat, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference to Molly.

“Are you cold?” Caleb asked as the tiefling finally stopped trying to hide his shivering.

“Yeah, but I’ll be fine. It’s not far,” Molly replied.

“It’s a little far.”

“However shall I survive?”

Caleb smiled and rolled his eyes. Then he paused and unwound his faded scarf from around his neck.

“Here,” he said, handing it to Molly, “Not exactly clean, but...it’s wool, so it will be warm.”

Molly shrugged and wrapped it around his neck.

“Don’t worry, love, your hygiene isn’t a deal-breaker for me,” he said with a wink, “How do I look?”

“Like a moron,” Caleb said, hoping the darkness hid the warmth creeping across his face.

“I think that says more about you than me.”

They turned onto a large road in the business district, and Caleb was immediately hit with a wave of familiarity.

“This way, we are close,” he said, pointing down another side street.

They approached the inn from a narrow street, unlit by lanterns and far from the faintly glowing windows of the inn. They lingered for a moment, hidden as far back as they could get while still maintaining a good view of the inn.

“I don’t see anyone outside, but that doesn’t mean no one’s there,” Molly said, his hand resting on one of his swords, “I’ll do a sweep.”

Caleb put his hand on Molly’s arm before he could take a step forward towards the inn and shook his head.

“No, I’ll do it. They’re looking for you, and I can disguise myself,” he said.

“Right, right,” Molly said, “But be careful.”

Caleb nodded.

“Stay here,” he said.

He began walking up the street, telling himself just to act casual, keep his head down and his eyes open. As he passed by a small alley, he raised his hands to cast _Disguise Self_. A shadow flickered in the corner of his eye. Quick footsteps. A flash of movement. He heard Molly start to speak before being cut off abruptly. Caleb whirled around just as he felt a hand slam into his chest, and he came face to face with a familiar pair of cold, blue eyes.

He tasted blood in his mouth. His vision blurred. The air around him grew cold and carried the smell of wet earth and the slight shimmer of magic. His mind started spinning. _She got me twice with the same fucking thing, I am an idiot,_ he thought. He waited for the ice to settle into his veins and his limbs to go numb, ready to beat back the curse this time. Then the pain set in.

His lungs seized up, the muscles in his torso tightened, and as his back hit the hard, uneven street beneath him, the veins in his neck and chest turned black and burst. He felt a scream escape him, but between the rushing of blood in his ears and the blinding, searing pain wracking his body, he couldn’t hear or feel anything else. Blood soaked the front of his tunic, and all he could do was stare up at the sky, shaking.

Astrid held her hand over him, an unknown spell sparking across her fingertips.

“No sudden moves from either of you, or you die where you stand,” she hissed.  

A moment of silence. Astrid didn’t even look at him. Her eyes were fixed on Molly. Caleb turned his head to look at his companion and immediately felt sick. One of Astrid’s guards had a dagger to his throat and had twisted his arm behind his back. Molly gave his arm an experimental tug, but it was more for show than anything else. The guard had him locked in place.

“Is this the part where you tell us to come quietly or else?” Molly asked, his voice dripping with malice, “Read us our rights and all that?”

He glanced over at Caleb, trying to hide his fear as he looked at the state the wizard was in.

“You’re dead to rights. Both of you. I can’t imagine your friend here isn’t a conspirator,” Astrid said.

Caleb furrowed his brow and looked back at her. Conspiracy? Surely he was dead to rights for a myriad of other, far worse things. Things he’d thought for sure she’d want to address. Unless… She glanced down at him, and he masked his confusion with a grimace of pain. It was an easy expression to summon. His whole torso was throbbing now, his heart labouring against his sudden blood loss. The significance of Astrid’s statement wasn’t lost on Molly either.

“Oh don’t bother with him,” Molly said, “He’s not even part of the club. He doesn’t know anything.”  

“Then he’ll be staying with us to ensure your cooperation,” Astrid said, “We have a lot to talk about.”

“I’d cooperate a lot more if you let him go.”

“Is that so?”

“You let him go, I’ll tell you everything I know. I’ll give you my life story if you want.”

“You’re not exactly in a position to negotiate.”

“No, but I _am_ in a position where I can’t afford not to.”

Astrid smiled.

“Brazen as ever,” she said, “and of course, single-minded.”

“Molly-,” Caleb started, but Molly was quick to cut him off.

“Ah ah ah, not another word out of you,” he said, “You’re getting a phenomenal deal out of this.”

_I could tell her. I could tell her right now. If she focused on me instead, perhaps Molly could get away._

“Touching,” Astrid said, “Now let’s go. Claus, when we get back send word to the capital that we’ve suspended our search for our previous target. We’ve got bigger problems to deal with.”

_Or perhaps not._

Astrid turned to leave, heading down the street away from the inn. The guard, Claus, gave Molly a push forward, but Molly pushed back and dug his heels in.

“This deal doesn’t really work if my friend here bleeds to death,” he said.

“And what would you like us to do about it?” Astrid asked.

“Oh I wouldn’t dream of asking you to lift another finger, my dear. After all you’ve worked so hard today,” Molly said, “I can get him to the inn myself. You know, get someone to put his organs back in his body.”

Astrid sighed.

“Your charity is so inconvenient,” she said.

“That’s funny, haven’t you already profited from my charity? Or did you go through all that to get a book you didn’t need?”

She glared at him. Her gaze was full of resentment that hardly felt warranted in comparison to Molly’s petty jab. She curled her hand into a fist.

“Don’t act cute,” she hissed, “What you did is the only reason you’re in this mess at all.”

“Obviously.”

She sneered at Molly, then turned her eyes to her guard.

“When we get back to the embassy, tell the city watch about the wretch,” she said.  

“No, no, absolutely not,” Molly said, resisting again as Claus tried to muscle him down the street, “You let me help him right here, right now, or you may as well kill us both for all the help I’ll be.”

“Mollymauk, don’t push it,” Caleb groaned, but no one seemed to hear him.

Astrid turned on her heel and stalked over to Molly. She grabbed his face, digging her nails into his skin and pulling him close.

“You know who I work for,” she hissed, in a voice so low Caleb had to strain to hear her, “Do you really think you can keep your secrets for long at the hands of a master spellcaster? Do you honestly think an upstart like you - playing like you have any sort of power when you don’t even know what real power _is_ \- is capable of that?”

“What makes you so sure you know what I’m capable of?” Molly asked, marching her tone, “I came back from the dead, darling. You don’t have _any_ idea what I’m capable of now.”

For a moment they only stared at each other, waiting for the other to relent. Caleb’s heart was hammering, and for a moment he felt like the whole world was spinning around him. He wanted to start yelling at Molly, tell him to shut the _fuck_ up, that he had no _idea_ what the Assembly would do to him, but he could barely get a breath in, much less a word out.

Astrid finally released Molly, but she didn’t break eye contact.

“Hm. No matter,” she said, “It's just one rat.”

She drew his swords from his belt, but made no move to get out of Molly’s face. Claus released him, and there was a beat where they simply stared each other down before Molly turned and walked over to Caleb. As soon as the eyes of Astrid and Claus were off of him, his angry, confident demeanor vanished, leaving only panic and uncertainty.

“What is the plan? Tell me what to do,” Caleb whispered.

“The plan is I go with them,” Molly replied, kneeling down next to him.

Caleb’s eyes went wide.

“You are not serious.”

“I am.”

“No, no, absolutely not, this is idiotic,” Caleb hissed, “If she takes you to-.”

He sucked in a sharp breath, cutting himself off as he felt another shock of pain go through his torso. Even talking was starting to hurt.

“First of all, you’re dying, and you’re an idiot,” Molly whispered, “Second of all, I don’t care about the people from my past, but you do. You said you wanted to fix your past, not erase it. If we fight back, there’s only one scenario where we win, and I won’t make you hurt her just so I can keep running from my problems.”

Caleb searched desperately for a response, something to convince him that giving himself up, to protect him of all people, was not worth it, but he couldn’t find the words. He felt a pang of sadness in his heart when he realized that even if he did say something, it probably wouldn’t change Molly’s mind anyway.

Molly pulled back Caleb’s coat, trying to assess the damage, but the spell hadn’t left any rips in his tunic. Only the sheer amount of blood in his clothing clued him into how bad it was. He slid one arm under Caleb’s shoulders, the other under his knees, and slowly sat him up. Caleb bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to scream as the wounds were bent and twisted by the movement.

“Shh, I’m sorry, just grab onto my neck. There you are,” Molly murmured, lifting Caleb up off the street as gently as he could manage, “You’re so much lighter than you look. You need to eat more.”

He winced as he felt his own stab wound protest.

“Ow. This was a bad idea,” he muttered.

“Stop, I can walk.”

“No the hell you can’t.”

Caleb didn’t argue. He paused and drew a shaky breath.

“This is all wrong, please don’t do this,” he whispered, curling his hands into fists.

“We’ll be ok, love, don’t you worry.”

The lanterns outside the inn felt as bright as the sun compared to the darkness of the street, but they carried none of the sun’s warmth, which he desperately needed now. The chill of the night felt so much worse than it had before as it nipped at Caleb’s fingers and seeped in through the gaps in his clothing. Just the motion caused by Molly walking was enough to make him dizzy. He squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to alleviate his vertigo, but it only made it worse. In the end he settled for staring at the tattoo on Molly’s neck, locking eyes with the single red eye hidden among the peacock feathers.

Molly set him down against the inn by the front door. He fussed for a moment, hands hovering in the air trying and failing to find _something_ he could help in the few moments he had left.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing else I can do,” he whispered.

“You’re doing too much already,” Caleb replied, glancing at Astrid and Claus hovering not far behind.

“I’m counting on you not to die, ok?” Molly said, gently cupping Caleb’s face in his hands, “That’s not allowed.”

“Please be careful, you don’t know these people like I do,” Caleb whispered.

“Shh, worry about yourself.”

Molly released a nervous breath. Hesitated a moment. Mulled something over. Caleb opened his mouth to speak and tell him he would be fine, someone in the inn would help him, but he didn’t get the chance as Molly leaned in and kissed him.

It was quick - little more than a peck on the lips - but it struck something in Caleb’s chest. Something warm and hungry, and as Molly pulled away and stood up, he felt the desperation trembling and seething in his chest rise to a roiling inferno. The ache inside him became a crushing weight that forced the air from his lungs. This was all happening too fast. This was wrong, this was _so wrong._

Claus grabbed Molly again as soon as he stood up and pulled his arms behind his back. Molly didn’t resist. He took a deep breath, his expression turning stoic and quiet. Astrid banged on the front door of the inn, shouted that someone needed help, then turned back towards Claus and Molly and motioned for them to move.

Caleb winced as he tried to sit up a little straighter. His muscles were screaming at him to get up. His lungs begged him to call out to Molly, plead with him to come back. He wrestled those thoughts back down. It was too late. They were out of time. He watched as they disappeared down the road and into the darkness. He watched even after they’d disappeared from view. He stared out into the night, listening to the breeze that passed between the buildings and the sound of his own throbbing heartbeat. As he closed his eyes, unable to stand the brightness of the lanterns any longer, he felt tears streak down his face, and he realized he’d been crying.

Several minutes passed in silence. No one came to the door of the inn. He knew that should scare him, but he couldn’t feel anything but numbness and sorrow. He wished he had Frumpkin here. Any distraction, really. Something to take away the ache settling into his ribs.

He opened his eyes.

Frumpkin. He gave him to Nott as they were running. She’d still have him, probably.

_No, I can only find him if he’s close. She’s long gone by now._

He turned his head towards the door of the inn and gave it another knock, or as good a knock as he could manage anyway. Then he closed his eyes again, ready to wait a little longer.

Minutes kept ticking by. Still, no one seemed to hear him. No one came. The stabbing pains in his torso only grew worse. The vertigo returned. The chill of the night grew heavier in his limbs. He opened his eyes and reached out into the darkness with his mind, searching for his familiar, desperate for someone to hear him. And if no one could hear him, maybe he could at least summon Frumpkin back and have his cat with him for a bit before he died.

There was a snap in his mind. A flicker of energy. The street around him disappeared. He was in a dark room, low to the floor, underneath what looked like a bed. He could hear breathing next to him, and as he turned his head he could see a small form curled up next to him, covered with a blanket, sound asleep. A sob of relief caught in his throat. Nott. She was there. She was in the inn. She came back.

He instructed Frumpkin to bat at her face, and the cat was more than happy to oblige. He pawed at her nose and her ears, tugging at the bandages still wrapped loosely around her face. Nott’s face twitched and she reached out and batted back.

“Fumpkin. Frumpkin, stop,” she muttered.

The cat persisted, and finally she opened her eyes.

“What? What do you want?!” she whispered.

A low growl rumbled in Frumpkin’s chest, and he grabbed Nott’s sleeve in his teeth and started tugging. Nott swatted him gently and crawled out from under the bed. Frumpkin bolted towards the door and sat below the knob, meowing and pacing. Nott shook the fog free from her mind, and her long ears shot up as she realized what all the fuss might mean.

Caleb heard a groan from the bed Nott had just been under and another familiar voice. He felt another tear streak down his face. Beau was there too. They’d been here the whole time. Oh god, if only he’d known...

“Frumpkin, what the fuck?” Beau groaned.

Nott ran up to her and shook her shoulder.

“Beau, get up,” she said, “Get up, get up.”

“What? What?!” Beau protested, sitting up and waving Nott off of her.

“It’s Caleb.”

“What?”

“It has to be, Frumpkin’s never like this. Come on, get up!”

“Ok, ok!”

Movement and another soft groan from the other bed.

“Guys, what’s going on?” Jester asked, lifting her head up.

At the foot of her bed, Kiri was waking up as well, her bright eyes wide with concern. She chittered quietly and looked from Nott and Beau to Jester.

“Jester, you come too, they could be in trouble,” Nott said, “Kiri, you stay here.”

Jester was awake immediately. Beau got out of bed and grabbed her staff. Jester was close behind. Nott opened the door, and Frumpkin immediately darted out into the hallway, still meowing. He paced around at the top of the stairs and waited until the group caught up. They all ran downstairs and through the pub on the first floor. Caleb came back to his own senses as the door to the inn opened.

It was chaos. So many voices overlapped with different mixtures of panic, relief, and confusion. He couldn’t keep track of who was where or who was saying what anymore. Then he felt Jester’s hands on his chest, and suddenly everything came back to him in a sharp snap of clarity. He gasped as he felt the wounds in his torso knitting back together. The icy cold in his limbs disappeared, and his head finally stopped spinning. His breaths came easier, but his chest still ached with a pain even their cleric couldn’t fix.

He couldn’t even utter a thank you before Jester was on him, hugging him and demanding to know what the fuck happened to him, who did this to him.

“Hey, hey, let’s get inside first,” Beau said, her eyes darting out into the darkness around them. Both her hands were clasped around her staff. She looked back at him, “Caleb, where’s Molly?”

Jester pulled him to his feet, nearly throwing him off balance. He looked at Beau, trying not to look as crushed as he felt and give her the wrong impression, but between the tear stains on his face and the blood on his shirt, it was impossible not to. Her eyes went wide.

“Oh god, don’t tell me he’s dead. Caleb-.”

“No, no, he’s not dead,” he said, “But they...they got him.”

He took a breath and crushed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to pull himself together so he could speak without stammering.

“Astrid?”

All he could do was nod.

“Ok, inside. Everyone inside,” Beau said.

As they walked back upstairs, they were met by Fjord and Yasha standing in the doorways of the other two rooms. Fjord looked dazed and rumpled, but Yasha didn’t look like she’d been sleeping at all.

“What’s all the racket about?” Fjord asked. His eyes landed on Caleb, still covered in blood, “Oh my god.”

“It’s ok, it’s fine, Jester took care of it,” Caleb said, “Though I think I need to sit down for a moment.”

Jester hurried him into her and Beau’s room while Beau motioned for Fjord and Yasha to follow them. Yasha frowned, her eyes scanning the group.

“Where is Molly?” she asked.

“Uh...we’re gonna...talk about that,” Beau said, unable to look at her directly.

They all shuffled inside and closed the door. Caleb sat down on Jester’s bed and took a deep breath. Kiri still sat at the foot of the bed, and her feathers puffed up in alarm when she saw him.

“That’s not ok!” she said in Jester’s voice, mimicking a piece of conversation she’d heard as the group was traveling to the coast.

“Don’t worry, Kiri, I am not hurt anymore,” Caleb said.

Kiri’s eyes were still wide with horror. Jester sat on his other side and put her hand on his shoulder, watching him carefully with her big, blue eyes. Frumpkin jumped up onto his lap and licked his hand, and Caleb was suddenly filled with incredible love and appreciation for everyone in the room.

_They were all here. The whole time, they were just a few steps away. If I had known, I could have called for help, I could have done_ something _._

Fjord frowned and crossed his arms.

“Caleb, what the hell happened to you?” he asked, “Are you alright?”

Caleb laughed bitterly.

“No, no I am not,” he said. He looked at Nott, “How much did you tell them?”

“After I lost those men with Astrid, I came back to the inn to wait, I didn’t know what else to do,” Nott said, “I told them you and Molly got attacked by someone you used to know, but I didn’t tell them anything else. I wasn’t sure what else _to_ tell them since you said she wasn’t actually there for you. What happened? What did she want?”

Caleb sighed.

“I’ll back up a little for the rest of you,” he said, “The other day I saw someone from my past in the square who...well who isn’t exactly my friend - Astrid, is her name. Yesterday we followed her to see if she was looking for me, and she was not, but she did see Mollymauk’s face, so we thought we’d lay low for a while just to be safe.”

“Right, Nott mentioned the food poisoning wasn’t real,” Fjord said.

“And she attacked you here in the inn?” Beau asked, “Who was-? Wait, was she after Molly?”

Caleb nodded, his stomach churning.

“She called him Lucien,” Caleb said.

“Shit,” Beau muttered.

Fjord sighed.

“Great. So that means we have no idea what she wants from him,” he said.

“We got out, found Nott, and then Molly and I went and hid at the docks for a while. He got hurt, but we took care of it. We decided to wait a while then come back here in case you left a note or someone stayed behind to wait. We didn’t expect...we did not expect you all to actually be here. We thought it would be too risky,” Caleb said, his voice catching. He paused and took a deep breath, pushing through the guilt and self-directed anger welling up behind his eyes, “But we were walking up the street when she and one of her men ambushed us. She used some kind of necromancy on me. I’m not exactly sure what. Then Mollymauk, ah...he told her he would go with them quietly if they let me go.”

“Wait, Astrid didn’t recognize you?” Nott asked.

“Evidently not. I almost told her who I was, but Molly would not have it.”

“And they took him,” Beau said, her face grim.

“Yes, they took him.”

“Where?” Yasha asked.

“I don’t know for certain, but probably the Dwendalian Embassy.”

“Hang on, these people are with the Empire?” Fjord asked.

Caleb nodded.

“Astrid, specifically, is likely still with the Cerberus Assembly,” he said.

“Does this have anything to do with that weird ritual thing Cree told us about back in Zadash?”

“Most likely.”

“What will they do to him?” Yasha asked.

“They were after information, as far as I could tell anyway, so I do not think they will kill him, but beyond that...,” Caleb paused, feeling nauseous, “Beyond that I am _very_ afraid of what they will do to him once they realize he has lost his memories.”

“Well we’ve got to get him out, right?” Nott asked, “He’s our friend, and the Empire is terrible. It’s horrible.”

Beau nodded.

“I agree, but we need to be careful otherwise _we’ll_ be on the shit list next,” she said.

“Whatever we have to do, count me in,” Yasha said.

“Yeah, me too,” Fjord said.

Jester looked at Caleb.

“Caleb, is this the same Astrid you mentioned back in Hupperdook?” she asked, “When you were really drunk that one night you said something about her.”

His face warmed. There was not much he remembered from the night in question. It was all surrounded by haze and noise and trying not to pass out or throw up. But he did remember dancing with Jester. And he did remember his slip.

“Ah...yes,” he said, staring down at his hands, “Yes, that’s the one.”

“Are you going to be ok?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, Jester,” he said, “I’m really not sure.”

* * *

 

No real planning got done that night. They all agreed that some scouting was in order before they did anything, which Jester and Yasha agreed to take care of since it was unlikely that Astrid or her men had seen them. After discussing that, there was nothing else they could do overnight. All that was left to do was rest. Though Caleb and Nott’s room was still useable, and the beds themselves hadn’t actually been damaged in the fight, no one wanted to sleep there, and certainly no one wanted to sleep alone. Fjord, Yasha, and Beau all went to Fjord and Molly’s room, and Jester and Nott elected to stay with Caleb in the girls’ room. Beau tried to convince Kiri to come with them, but the little girl refused to budge. Eventually she gave up and went back to bed.

Caleb had hoped for a moment of peace to clean himself up before the blood dried, but Jester and Nott hovered around Caleb like moths as he peeled his tunic off, worried there might be something they missed. In the end they were worried for nothing. Jester’s spell did its job well, but the sight of what remained of the wounds was still frightening to look at. The wounds had appeared in uneven branches across Caleb’s chest, originating from the point over his sternum where Astrid struck him. What remained were raw lines like freshly healed cuts, and where the magic had caused damage, the skin turned an ashy purple.

“Wow, that looks really really bad,” Jester said, “Are you sure you’re ok? Do I need to heal you again?”

“That looks really really bad,” Kiri echoed from her place on Jester’s bed.

“No, I’ll be fine, Jester. Don’t trouble yourself,” Caleb said, pulling a clean-ish shirt out of his bag and putting it on.

“She really almost killed you,” Nott said gravely.

Caleb nodded, preferring not to entertain that line of thought.

“I’m really sorry,” Jester murmured, “About Astrid. It sounded like you loved her.”

He paused a moment, hovering at the foot of Beau’s bed. He took a deep breath and sighed, trying not to get sucked down into old memories.

“I did at one point, yes,” he said, “We were young and foolish, and I thought at one point that I could...well that I could maybe have a life with her one day...But in the end it was not meant to be. We took different paths, and it has been years since we last saw each other. Astrid now is...well she is very unlike the Astrid I knew.”

“Yeah, I bet she didn’t go around trying to kill people.”

Caleb tried not to flinch at Jester’s words, but he was sure Nott noticed the ghost of a grimace that passed across his face. He masked the sharp ache that bloomed in his chest with a thin smile.

“Do you still love her?” Jester asked.

“Well...that is a tough question,” he said, “I think part of me will always love that girl I knew, but...she is not that person anymore. And I am not the person she knew either. What we had is a thing of the past. No point in hanging on to it.”

_Especially since…_

He paused. Was he really going to do this? Was he going to finish that thought? Was he finally going to give affirmation to the emotions he’d been trying to keep down thus far? Was he going to let those feelings gain substance?

Jester looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn’t. She only walked forward and gave him a hug. He wasn’t quite sure how to take it or what it meant, but he went ahead and hugged her back, thankful that she didn’t press the issue any further.

Once they were satisfied that he wasn’t going to spontaneously start dying again, they all settled down for the night. Caleb took Beau’s bed, and instead of taking the extra bed the inn set up for Yasha, Nott curled up in a ball at his feet. Jester made sure Kiri got settled down again before sitting down at the desk in the corner and opening her sketchbook, electing to give her nerves time to settle before she went to sleep.

Caleb tried to sleep, but his eyes wouldn’t stay closed. He stared at the wall, watching the shadows cast by the candle Jester lit. He listened to the sharp scratches she made against the paper when she used her ink pens and the smooth scrapes when she used her paints. He listened to Nott’s breathing and the creak of the floor when Jester shifted in her chair. He focused intensely on the ebb and flow of sound in the room, because if his focus wandered for even a moment, his head dissolved into chaos.

Instead of the wall of the inn, he saw the wall of the shed by the docks. Instead of the orange of the candlelight, he saw the orange of the evening sky as they ran through the streets. Instead of the familiar smell of dust and dry dirt in his coat, he could smell the unnatural earthiness created by Astrid’s spell as she sprung from the shadows. Instead of the warmth of the air around him, he could feel the warmth of Molly’s body next to his as he dozed off in the shed. Instead of the red of the cotton blanket beneath him, he could see the red of Molly’s eyes as he ran his thumb over Caleb’s cheek and told him he wasn’t allowed to die.

And between the fleeting images and sensations, his mind churned through an entire cocktail of unpleasant emotions. Guilt, fear, desperation, anger, grief, and irony all mixed up with all his terrible thoughts that just wouldn’t stop coming. He didn’t think they would kill Molly tonight, or even next week, that much he believed. As long as they thought they could learn something from him, the Empire would keep him. They would keep him, and they would use whatever enchantments they had at their disposal to squeeze every drop of information they could out of him. They would beat him down and torture him until there was nothing left. And _then_ they would kill him.

He attacked and discarded those thoughts and feelings, searching for a single shred of hope or resolve within himself that he could coax to life. In the end, all he felt was numb. He had to fix this. He _had_ to fix this. It was entirely because of him that any of this had happened. The thought of getting anywhere near Astrid again terrified him, but otherwise, he would be creating the reality that he feared so much. He could not abide by that. And besides...

He absent-mindedly ran a knuckle over his lips. His heart raced. Was he going to finish that thought?

_And besides...if we do not free Mollymauk...I will never get the chance to apologize for waiting until_ after _I was sure I was going to die to acknowledge my feelings for him._

“Caleb?” Nott murmured, “Are you still awake?”

“Hm,” was the only sound he made in response.

“You know this isn’t your fault, right? We’re going to get him back.”

“I know we will,” he murmured, “What other choice do we have?”

“The Empire doesn’t have any _real_ power down here,” Nott continued, “Breaking into the embassy should be easy enough once we come up with a plan.”

“I know. I already have one.”


	5. Chapter 5

The public areas of the Dwendalian Embassy were rustic and cozy. The woodwork and tapestries adorning the interior emulated the Empire’s style and architecture, providing a small piece of home to its patrons. It was lit with ornate oil lamps in the evening, open to the warm coastal sunshine during the day, and even though the streets outside were abuzz with activity, the embassy was peaceful and quiet.

The non-public areas were far less inviting.

Molly spent the night isolated in one of two cells in the embassy’s gloomy, stone basement. Layers of earth separated him and the main floor, insulating him from the wet weather above, but it did little to stop the chill. The air was stale, and the colors were dark and muted. Time was impossible to track. It felt like a completely different plane compared to the lively world above him, and it was easy to imagine months going by with him none the wiser. It wasn’t a thought he wanted to dwell on, but it was preferable to any other thought spinning through his head, most of which revolved around Caleb.

First thing they’d done before tossing him into the cell was take anything he could use as a weapon or a tool - jewelry, belt, even his boots lest they be concealing a dagger - but they didn’t take Caleb’s scarf. Part of him was glad, but part of him wished they had. He breathed in the smell of dry earth and salt that clung to the scarf, and all he could hear was Caleb calling him an idiot and begging him not to do this. He ran himself ragged wondering if the wizard was ok, wondering if someone had come for him in time. He wondered how long it would be before he knew the answer, if he ever found out at all. For all he knew he could be in the Empire’s custody indefinitely, left to suffer and rot at the hands of their soldiers and spellcasters.

When he went with Astrid and Claus, he hadn’t really thought his plan through. He knew they weren’t after Caleb. He knew Caleb would die if he didn’t do something. He knew they couldn’t fight them. He didn’t process much after that before following his instincts and saying the first shit that came to mind that he thought might be helpful. It wasn’t until they were walking down the street and he finally stopped talking that he realized just how deep this river of shit ran. He’d just assumed his friends could get him out of this, after all they’d faced worse, but when would that happen? How long would it take them to get organized? How long before Astrid realized he knew absolutely _nothing_ and sent him off? If the Nein did mount a rescue, and he slipped past them, how long before they got another chance? Would the Assembly get the chance to experiment on him, see if they could dreg anything useful out of the mire of his amnesia, before they got to him? And if they did manage to find him, would they even want to save the person they found?

He was saved from sinking further into his own thoughts by the sound of the dungeon door opening. His relief was swept away immediately when he saw who it was.

Astrid pulled a stool over to his cell and sat down in front of the bars. Molly made no move to leave his place against the back wall, legs crossed, hands resting on his knees, but she didn’t seem to mind. She opened up a folder full of loose pieces of parchment and thumbed through it until she found whatever page she was looking for. On her lap was an ornate, leather-bound book that Molly didn’t get a good look at before she set her folder down and looked at him.

“First things first,” she said.

She waved her hand through the air and muttered a quick incantation. Molly recognized Jester’s truth spell and made no effort to resist it. He gave her a genial smile.

“I have a friend who can do that,” he said, “You learn that at the academy?”

The smile she returned was thin-lipped, like a taut rope just barely holding in all the disdain she felt for him.

“Where did you learn to be so disgustingly selfless? The hole you’ve been hiding in for two years?” she asked.

“The circus, actually. I didn’t stay in my hole very long.”

“The circus? Hm, that explains a few things. They scrape you up off the side of the road?”

“There was a bit of that, yes.”

“Never thought I’d see the illustrious leader of the fearsome Tomb Takers so humbled.”

“Well I’m not quite the man I used to be.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Alright,” she said, leaning forward, “I’m done being coy. You’re here because I have questions, and it seems you’re the only person who can answer them. My other avenues have failed me. If you cooperate, hold up your end of the bargain, we both may benefit from this.”

“Well then, by all means.”

“Starting with the most obvious question: how did you survive? I was present for the ritual, I saw what happened to you. Your people did what they could to revive you, but you were, undeniably, dead,” Astrid said.

She fixed him with a steely gaze and waited for him to answer. He furrowed his brow and drummed his fingers against his knee.

“Don’t think I’ll be much help there,” he said, “The miracle of my survival is just as much a mystery to me as it is to you.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“That’s funny, because earlier you seemed awfully confident that whatever brought you back had given you some kind of awesome power over me,” she said, “Was that, perhaps, a lie?”

“One that you fell for.”

She flashed him a poisonous smile.

“I wouldn’t say ‘fell for’ so much as ‘decided to let you have your way in order to keep that conversation from dragging out any longer than necessary,’” she said.

She looked down at her documents again, and Molly opened his mouth to remind her that he wouldn’t help her if she went after Caleb, but he stopped himself when he realized he was going to have zero leverage in a few minutes. Astrid looked back up.

“Anyway. So the pages torn out of the book didn’t mention dying in order to complete the ritual, then,” she said.

“Pages?” Molly asked.

“Yes, the pages _conveniently_ missing from the book after you gave it to me,” she said.

“Oh...Honestly I don’t know,” he said.

She frowned.

“And what exactly does that mean, Nonagon? There’s something you’re not telling me, and I don’t appreciate you wasting my time.”

He laughed nervously.

“Oh my dear,” he said, “You’re not going to like this, but please keep in mind, we both know I’m not capable of the kind of magic required to fool that spell of yours. I am being one hundred percent truthful.”

“Get to the point.”

“Right, ok,” he said. He clapped his hands down on his knees and leaned in closer, “I have no idea what any of this is about. My name is Molly, I dug my way out of a grave in the woods two years ago, and until a couple months ago I knew nothing about who I was before. I don’t remember you, don’t remember that book you’re holding, which I can only assume is _the_ book I’ve heard so few concrete details about. I don’t remember this ritual, or anything having to do with the Tomb Takers, or anything that came before that. As far as I’m concerned, Lucien or Nonagon or whoever is some other asshole who fucked with something he couldn’t control and paid the price for it. If you’re looking for answers, I’m afraid I won’t be of any help to you.”

Astrid’s expression never changed, though Molly suspected it was impossible for her to be coiled any tighter. She studied him, taking in every change in his facial expressions, every bit of subtext in his tone. For a moment she said nothing, but he could see the gears in her mind turning.

“You aren’t lying,” she said, “You can’t be.”

“Yes, it is literally impossible for me to do so. Glad we’re on the same page.”

“How far back does your amnesia go? How much, exactly, have you forgotten?”

“Well, considering I didn’t know my name, or whether I was born from parents or just literally formed by the earth itself...”

“You have to remember _some_ things. I recognized your use of blood magic yesterday.”

Molly waved his hand dismissively.

“That just happens. My knowledge of how any of that works is based entirely on instinct,” he said.

“So you’ve never had any memories return at all?”

“Nothing concrete. Like I said, it’s all instincts. Feelings. Things that I’m sure you wouldn’t find useful.”

“And that’s really all you know.”

“Really and truly.”

She took a breath, her expression growing cold as she thought it over and realized there was no way to weasle anything out of him. There was no information to be gleaned. Another dead end. She closed her folder and stood. He looked for some frustration, barely contained anger, anything, but she was as collected as when she came in, and that frightened him far more than anything she’d said or done to him up until now.

“If it makes you feel any better, I _was_ telling the truth when I said I’d tell you everything I knew,” he said.

She didn’t seem to appreciate the sentiment.

“We’re done here,” she said.

Then she turned and started walking towards the staircase.

“Do I at least get to know what you’re planning on doing with me?” Molly asked.

She didn’t answer. She simply kept walking. He heard the heavy door slam behind her, and she was gone. Her silence wasn’t all that disappointing, however. He felt certain he knew what they would do with him anyway. In his current state, he was useless to them. Another loose end, guilty of plenty of crimes against the Empire, he was sure. Whether they tried to wring any more information out of him or decided he was just another criminal didn’t matter. He was a dead man either way.

* * *

The day began early for them. As soon as they could rouse everyone, the Nein packed up and left the inn. As they disappeared among the sandstone buildings, Caleb thought he saw some of Astrid’s guards approaching the building, but he didn’t stop long enough to make sure. As long as they couldn’t be followed, it didn’t matter what the Empire did now.

The sun wasn’t even high enough to shine down on the streets as they walked, and though only a few clouds drifted across the sky, more approached from the horizon, promising rain. Once they found a place to stash their stuff, they split up to do recon.

Beau crossed her arms and leaned against the wall of the alley, the hood of her cloak up and her staff slung over her back. Her eyes didn’t leave Caleb as he watched the street with apprehension and took metal notes about the security around the Dwendalian Embassy. Her face was relaxed, but she wore just a hint of a scowl that went beyond her usual abrasiveness. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye every once in a while, waiting for her to look away, but she didn’t. Finally he turned towards her.

“What?” he asked.

“Are you gonna tell them?” she asked.

“Tell them what?”

“You know, about your...like how you know Astrid and shit,” she said, “You said if this was going to endanger everyone else that you would tell them, and like I got why you didn’t say anything when the problem was just with Molly, because it wasn’t relevant, but if we’re actually gonna go with this plan of yours, then that’ll put the focus on you again. Like...it matters now, you know?”

Caleb looked away.  

“Ya, I know,” he murmured.

“Like I can’t force you, but I don’t think this is something we should keep from them.”

“I know, Beauregard.”

“So what’s the plan?"

“I…” he paused and sighed, “I will tell them after we rescue Molly. And not a moment before.”

“Ok. Yeah, sure.”

She shifted and looked out into the street. For a moment neither of them spoke. Beau looked at him again.

“You know, I think they’ll take it better than you think,” she said.

“That does not make it any less terrifying, though,” Caleb replied.

“Well...yeah, I guess not, but…” she paused, trying to find the words, “But I mean we’re all kind of fucked up, and we’ve all done shitty things, and everyone knows what kind of person you are now, so…”

“Beauregard, nothing you say is going to make me feel better about this.”

She sighed.

“Look, I’m just trying to help-.”

“I know. I know you are, but I am telling you it is not helping.”

“Ok...sorry...I just...I think it’ll be fine,” she said.

Caleb couldn’t quite muster up a smile, but that didn’t seem to bother her. She looked back out at the street.

“Now let’s figure out our escape route and get out of here.”

* * *

Astrid cracked the window in her modest, temporary office, trying to get some air circulating. The cold wasn’t entirely welcome, but she needed to feel if only for a moment like the room wasn’t suffocating her. She paused and stared out at the street as ordinary people went about their ordinary business, completely unaware of the battles being fought around them. She sighed and rubbed her temples. She could feel a headache coming on. Adding insult to injury seemed to be the way of the universe where she was concerned. 

_“My name is Molly, I dug my way out of a grave in the woods two years ago, and until a couple months ago I knew nothing about who I was before.”_

Another lead snatched away. Nothing short of hunting down the other Tomb Takers would give her answers now, and that had already proven to be an astronomical task. The blood hunters were slippery. As soon as their leader died, they all scattered into the wind before she even realized there were pages missing in the book. She couldn’t find them then, she couldn’t find them now, and even if she did find one, they would never let her capture one of them without a serious fight.

_The only reason I got Nonagon at all is because he doesn’t even know who he is,_ she thought.

She curled her hand into a fist, suddenly thankful that her men hadn’t sent the letter to the capital saying they’d suspended their search for The Hawker. It was the only case they could work on now. The case of Nonagon and his troublesome band of occultists and mercenaries was out of her hands now, headed to those at the capital more powerful than her. Good riddance. Let the Assembly satisfy their curiosity surrounding the blood hunters themselves.

_Bang bang bang!_

She turned towards the door.

“Enter,” she said.

One of her guards poked his head in. He had a worried look on his face that immediately put her on edge.

“Someone ‘ere to see you, Miss,” he said, “‘Fink it’s that ginger fellow from earlier. Th’ one we was lookin’ for.”

She raised an eyebrow. Oh, so she hadn’t killed him after all. And he’d come to them, no less.

“What does he want?”

“Not sure. Says he wants to talk with ya.”

“Is there anyone with him?”

“Don’t seem like it.”

“Alright. Send him in, but keep your eyes open.”

The guard nodded and ducked out again. She took a breath and looked back out the window. No doubt the fool had come to bargain. Either that or his associates had some other plan up their sleeve. No matter. She would find out sooner rather than later, and either way it would be of no consequence. She doubted he could surprise her.

A moment later she heard another knock.

“Bring him in,” she said, not moving from her place at the window.

The door opened, and the guard ushered in the dirty wizard from earlier. In the daylight and with nothing else to pull her focus, he looked even more of a wreck than she remembered. His boots were scratched up and worn down. There were holes worn at the hem of his coat. Dust and grime from the road clung to his skin, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He seemed to be fighting to keep his expression neutral, but he couldn’t quite keep his emotions at bay. Fear and sadness flashed across his face, and though she wasn’t sure of the cause, she saw a touch of awe in his tired eyes. A sorry sight to be sure, but something about his face bothered her. A voice in the back of her mind nagged at her, the same one that had spoken when she first fought him at the inn. It swore she’d seen him somewhere before, but she couldn’t quite place it. She’d traveled all over the Empire, met a lot of people. She could have met him anywhere.

“I’m starting to think the two of you are just stupid,” she said.

“I think you are correct, yes,” the man said.

“If you’re here to bargain for Nonagon’s freedom, then-.”

“No, that is not why I’m here, Astrid.”

She raised an eyebrow. So they had met. This was a personal call, then. The nagging voice in her head grew louder as she listened to him speak. Clearly he was from the Fields.

“You know my name,” she observed, “Can’t say I remember yours. Refresh my memory.”

_A Zemnian spellcaster...red hair, blue eyes…_

“Are you just being cruel now? Or do you really not know me?” he asked, the hurt blatant in his eyes.

Something in her head clicked. Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She just stared at him in stunned silence. No, it couldn’t-...but it was. Behind him the guard shifted nervously. Finally she spoke.

“No, I...I do. Caleb, it’s been...”

A million things she wanted to say ran through her head. Where have you been? I thought you were still in the asylum. They told me you were still in the asylum. How did you get out? Who helped you? Was it Eodwulf? How long ago did you escape? What in the hell are you doing with Nonagon? Do you know who he is? Does he know who _you_ are? I should kill you where you stand. They’d reward me if I did. You’re a goddamn traitor. I almost killed you. Why have you come to _me?_

None of these questions went any further, though. She banished her shock at seeing him again and collected herself again.

“Well, this _is_ a surprise,” she said.

“Yes, I imagine it is,” he said.  

“Especially considering you’re a traitor to the Empire, and you know by coming here, you are guaranteeing your arrest.”

“I am aware.”

“Well, go on. Tell me what you want. It must be important.”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Talk to me about what?”

He paused, a quiet, bitter smile crossing his face.

“You will laugh at me, I’m sure,” he said, “but...I am just here to catch up. When Mollymauk gave himself up, I did not believe it would do either of us any good, but he was certain you had not recognized me. I did not believe it. I thought you would come for me next, and I knew I could not fight you. I figured I would have nothing to lose by coming to you for one last chat on my own terms, no guards dragging me off to prison before I could see you. Now I see I miscalculated.”

“Indeed. That’s a shame.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Your other associates couldn’t have helped you escape? The woman and the goblin? I’m sure there’s an interesting story there.”

“Associates is a very generous term. We met them on the road and were traveling together, but as soon as things went south, they told me they wanted no part of it. And as I said, I knew I could not outrun you on my own.”

“Indeed, and it’s certainly too late now.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“So this is you giving yourself up?”

He nodded. He looked at the floor, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets. Caleb had never been an outgoing person. He’d always been a little anxious, a little socially awkward, but he was bright. He was confident in his abilities, ambitious, and charming in his own way. This man was nothing like the boy she knew. He’d been so beat down, his former spark snuffed out, it was like looking at a hurried sketch. It had his form, all his basic features, but there was no color or movement. No life at all.

_Good, he deserves it,_ she thought, but some part of her felt just a tiny bit sad. She pushed that part down. There could be no sympathy for people like him.

“And you wanted to...catch up? What does that mean exactly?” she continued.

“You know, tell me where you’ve been. What has happened. I have heard nothing of you or Eodwulf since...well since our last night in Blumenthal. I never thought I would see you this far south.”

“And that’s all?”

He nodded. She sighed and shook her head.

“You’re far too sentimental, Caleb,” she said, “But I’ll humor you. I am curious as to how you escaped the asylum.”

She took a seat in the chair behind the desk. She motioned for him to sit down as well.

“How long have you been out?”

“I cannot say for sure, but five years sounds right,” he said.

“Who helped you? We both know they didn’t just let you go, and I have a hard time believing you got out by yourself. Even now you’re a quivering wreck.”

“You are...not wrong,” he said sadly, “but no one helped me.”

“No? Surely someone did.”

He sighed.

“Are you capable of having a conversation without working?” he asked, “Or have you forgotten how?”

“I said we could talk. I promised nothing else.”

“Right,” he sighed, “No, no one helped me. So, ah...are you with the Assembly now?”

She decided to let it go for now. She could always interrogate him later. She would like to get the story from him first before Ikithon received word of this, swooped in, and tried to explain to her how Caleb had been on the run for five years and no one bothered to tell her. No doubt he would feed her nothing but lies before tampering with Caleb’s mind so he could parrot back those same lies, leaving her no choice but to believe them. Trent was lucky she was too invested in her job to call him out on his bullshit.

“Yes, they made me a full member soon after my graduation,” she said.

“How long have you been collecting bounties for them?”

“Since the beginning, practically. I’ve found my particular skill set is well suited to apprehending criminals.”

“Of course, that should not surprise me. What about Eodwulf? Where has he gone?”

“I haven’t spoken to him in a very long time,” she said, her face growing dark. A memory tugged at her, and a few lines of the letter he left her played in her head, apologizing for running, explaining he just couldn’t do it anymore. She pushed them aside, “He and I worked together on cases for many years, but about six years ago he took a case by himself and disappeared. I can only assume he turned traitor as well.”

“Is he alive?”

“I believe so.”

“I hope he is alright,” Caleb said.

Astrid didn’t echo his sentiments. A moment of silence passed between them. During their training together, Eodwulf had been as zealous about executing traitors and serving the Empire as the rest of them, but in hindsight she should have known he’d break eventually. She’d seen the doubt in his eyes as they left his house. She’d seen the look on his face when he thought no one was watching. She’d encouraged him to toughen up and push through whatever thoughts were eating at him, and at the time she thought he’d taken those words to heart. Still, she should have known something would give eventually.

“How about your personal life, then?” Caleb asked, “Any boyfriends, girlfriends, family to speak of?”

“No.”

“No one? Why is that?”

“It didn’t seem right,” she said. Before she could stop it, she was struck by a memory of her parents. Violently she pushed it back down. A life like that, with a normal family in a normal home, was something far beyond her reach now. She paused, realized what she was thinking, realized what she’d said, and quickly corrected herself, “Didn’t seem appropriate, I should say. I’m gone so often, and I do such important work. There’s no room for that.”

Caleb nodded, but he didn’t seem to buy it.

“I understand,” he said, “So Eodwulf is gone, you have no family. That sounds terribly lonely.”

She snorted.

“Don’t think you can use that against me. I work best when I’m alone. I prefer it,” she said.

“I...I am not trying to use that against you, Astrid,” he said, “I only say that because I know what it’s like.”

“Are you trying to relate to me?” she asked. She laughed, “Caleb, we have nothing in common anymore. When we were children, yes, we all wanted the same thing. We wanted to grow stronger, make our families proud, serve the Empire. And we...well we did have something more, but it was practically doomed from the start. It’s not something we could ever have again.”

Caleb tapped his fingers against the table. She waited for him to speak again, as she had nothing else to say, but he too was silent. She wanted to be done with this conversation. It was only reminding her of things she’d managed to forget and push aside for years, dragging them up like mud off the bottom of a lake. It was unproductive. Too personal. She knew all she had to do was tell her men to just lock him up, but she felt trapped. She was sitting at that dining room table, staring at the pattern in her family’s old silverware, wishing she were less of a coward.

Caleb looked back up at her. For a second the dark cloud around him lifted, and she saw a little spark of life in his eyes, as if for a moment he’d let some kind of facade drop and he’d allowed himself to _really_ look at her. His expression was still sad, yes...but not hopeless. He was still afraid...but not defeated. He looked...well, he looked like himself. She felt a pang of dread in her gut and tensed, but as soon as that spark returned it was snuffed out again. The cloud returned. His eyes fell back to the table. Still, she couldn’t let herself relax. Finally he spoke.

“I know,” he said, “Those moments are gone, and you are right, we will never get them back. We will never be those kids again. But I think...well, I don’t think that means those kids are gone. There are many days where I feel like I am fifteen again, seeing the skyline of Rexxentrum for the first time, and my only worry is whether or not the next person I meet will like me.”

He took a deep breath, tapped the table again, and curled his hand into a fist.

“And then I am reminded that I am a thirty-something year old homeless man who cannot smell smoke without going catatonic, and I…”

He sighed.

“You know, sometimes hanging onto the past is the only way I stay sane. I have to believe that someday I can have what those kids had again. That I can find some kind of happiness, even though I know I do not deserve it. That the three of us can be forgiven for everything we have done, and maybe find some kind of peace again.”

Astrid took a breath. Smiled. Shook her head.

“Always such a dreamer,” she murmured.

And that was all.

Caleb chewed on his lip, staring off into space. For a moment she thought he was waiting for her to speak again, but she realized he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He glanced around the room, as if waiting for something else to happen. Something that might get him out of this. Whatever it was, it didn’t come, and a little fear played in his eyes as he contemplated his next sentence. Finally he spoke.

“So, the weather has been really shit lately-,” he started.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Astrid sighed, sitting forward in her chair.

“It is always so wet in this place, how do you-?”

He cut himself off, looking relieved to end this line of conversation. An odd expression crossed his face, as if he were listening to some sound she couldn’t hear. Again, the cloud around him lifted, and this time it didn’t return. It immediately set off the warning bells inside her head, and she raised herself half out of her chair, moving to stand up before he could try anything, but Caleb stood up first.

“Right, ok, sorry about this,” he said.

He spun towards the door and unleashed a torrent of fire that engulfed almost the entire wall in flames.

Her guard screamed and dove to the side. The places where his tunic showed through his armor caught fire, and he dropped to the ground and rolled. Astrid pushed her chair aside and immediately shot a bolt of icy magic at Caleb. She had little time to aim, and he ducked out of the way before it could connect. He turned towards her and uttered an incantation. She felt the magic’s grip upon her, but this time she didn’t do enough to resist it before it took effect. The air around her felt thick, and her limbs felt heavy. Her eyes locked with Caleb’s, and she saw it again, that spark of life she thought had been forgotten, and panic bloomed in her chest. She’d been played.

The fire spread to the ceiling and across the rug. Caleb started heading for the window as the guard dragged himself over to the desk and away from the blaze. Astrid heard shouting and footsteps outside the door as the other guards ran to investigate the source of the smoke. Caleb hurled a firebolt through the window, smashing the glass and part of the frame. Astrid knew she wouldn’t have time to cast any spells to slow him down. Instead she pushed herself forward and lunged towards him.

She crashed into him, dragging him to the ground. For a moment they grappled with each other, but her reflexes weren’t fast enough to keep him from pushing her aside and getting to his feet. She coughed as the smoke in the room grew worse. She heard the door crash open, but her men immediately stepped back as flames burst from the room.

“I didn’t think you’d have the balls to actually try and kill me,” she said.

Caleb stopped, hovering with one hand on the window frame. He looked back at her.

“Astrid, this was never about you,” he said, “And though I hope I never see you again after today, I do hope one day you can put all of this behind you and move on. If you can, you’ll be leagues ahead of me.”

As the guards began throwing water on the fire and storming into the room, Caleb turned and launched himself through the broken window. Astrid pushed herself to her feet, but wasn’t fast enough to stop him. She felt the magic around her dissipate as she reached the window and looked out into the street. People were crowding around, some screaming as they saw the flames inside the building, but there was no sign of Caleb, only scattered glass on the ground. He was gone.

* * *

 

The shock of hitting the ground nearly made Caleb freeze up, but he forced himself to his feet. Around him, people on the streets screamed and shuffled away from the embassy. Shaking glass off of himself, he pushed past the gathering crowd and ran into an alley. He could hear chaos behind him as the guards shouted orders at each other and tried to get organized. He hoped that Nott and Beau would have enough time to get in and out without being caught. All he had to do was disappear now.

He ducked into an alley and nearly ran head first into Yasha who was standing near the mouth of the alley. Without a word she grabbed him and started hustling him away from the street. Further down he could see Fjord just as he changed his appearance to that of a wealthy resident of the coast. Caleb quickly followed suit. Jester stood at the other end of the alley, holding Kiri’s hand. She motioned to them that the coast was clear, and the five of them slipped out of the alley and into the boisterous crowds. Caleb released a breath, finally allowing himself to relax.

“How’d it go?” Fjord asked as they walked.

“Oh, you know,” Caleb breathed, “I complained about the weather, and then I set fire to the room.”

“Beau and Nott? They find Molly?”

“I certainly hope so. Did you agree on a rendezvous?” Caleb asked Fjord.

“We hid the cart on the outskirts of town so we can leave as soon as everyone shows up. Beau said if they weren’t there by nightfall, then something went wrong,” Fjord said.

“I do not like leaving them like this,” Caleb murmured.

“I know, I don’t either,” Yasha said.

“I know, but it’s best if Astrid doesn’t know myself, Jester, or Yasha are involved, and if she gets her hands on you, Caleb, I doubt you’ll get away again,” Fjord said.

Caleb nodded.

“No, I doubt she will take prisoners next time,” he said.

“What are we going to do if they don’t show up?” Jester asked.

“I don’t know. ‘Spose we’ll figure it out when we get there,” Fjord said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I addressed this already in the comments, but for those who don't read those and who may be wondering about Astrid, a wizard, casting Zone of Truth, I could easily say here that I tagged this with "playing fast and loose with D&D rules" for a reason, BUT there is an actual wizard subclass in the Unearthed Arcana that lets wizards draw from the cleric spell list. So there, my bullshitting is justified in just this once instance, ha ha ha :P


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update this week since I won't have time Sunday. Gonna try to update on time next week, but I'm not sure what my schedule is going to look like, so hang in there. :P 
> 
> Again, thanks to everyone who left comments and kudos, from simple "<3"s to full on reviews. I love and appreciate you all <3

They parked the cart on top of a hill, far on the outskirts of town. From their place near the road, they could see over the tops of the warm brown buildings all the way to the ocean. A light breeze tugged at their hair and clothes, carrying the scent of wet earth and woodsmoke. There was little conversation to be had as they settled in. Jester did try, but her attempts at striking up a light-hearted conversation to cheer everyone up fell flat. Everyone was too wrapped up in their own thoughts, and no one felt like sharing.

Half an hour passed. Then another. Fjord suggested they make some lunch. With all the guards in the city on high alert, it could take time for Beau, Nott, and Molly to get out.

“No sense in starvin’,” Fjord said, “Especially if we’re gonna be on the road for a while.”

They built a fire and ate their mediocre rations as the sun continued its march across the sky. Fjord and Jester made small talk, but Yasha was even quieter than usual. Caleb summoned Frumpkin and instructed the cat to jump up in her lap. It didn’t completely dispel the dark clouds hanging around her, but it did make her smile just a little, which was good enough for him. He wanted to give her a little comfort before he inevitably upset her again tomorrow. As much as he wanted to forget his promise to Beau that he would come clean with the rest of the group, he knew she wouldn’t let it go if he did.

The sky turned pink and orange as the sun dipped towards the horizon. As it kissed the ocean, throwing golden streaks of light across the water, Jester jumped up and pointed down the road, calling for the others to get up. Caleb stood, his heart racing, and looked down to the base of the hill. He could see Beau, trudging up with her staff in her hands. He could see Nott, clutching the edges of her robes and following close behind. He could see no one else, and judging by the exhausted, defeated expression on Beau’s face, no one else was coming.

Beau had more than a few fresh bruises on her face and body along with several new cuts that had scabbed over and stopped bleeding hours ago. She walked slowly as if her whole body ached. Fjord ran up to meet her and Nott as they reached the crest of the hill. Jester followed close behind, but Caleb and Yasha could only stand and stare in numb silence. Kiri got up and followed Jester.

“Jesus, shit, are you two ok?” Fjord asked, putting a hand on Beau’ shoulder.

“Do you need me to heal you?” Jester asked.

Beau shook her head.

“No. No I’m alright,” she muttered, “I just need to sleep it off.”

“Are you alright?” Kiri asked, mimicking Fjord from the night before and cocking her head at Nott.

“I’m ok, Kiri,” Nott said, though the exhaustion was plain in her voice.

“What happened?” Fjord asked, guiding the two of them over to the dying campfire and sitting them down, “Did you find Molly?”

Beau shook her head.

“No. We broke into the basement after Caleb distracted the guards, but he wasn’t in any of the cells,” she said.

“We found a guard who told us they transferred him yesterday, while we were planning,” Nott said, staring at the ground, “We were too late.”

“Transferred him? Transferred him _where?”_ Fjord asked.

Beau glanced over at Caleb. His mouth went dry.

“Rexxentrum,” she said, “The guard didn’t know why, but I think I can guess.”

“She’s sending him to the Assembly,” Caleb murmured, “She thinks they can fix his amnesia.”

“Could they?” Beau asked.

“I don’t know. That…” he paused and took a deep breath, trying to beat down the anxiety attack that was trying to hard to surface, “That would depend on what caused it.”

“The Assembly does some pretty hardcore stuff, though, don’t they?” Fjord asked, “Does she really think whatever information Molly might have warrants something that...extreme?”

“Well she has to, otherwise she wouldn’t have done it,” Beau said, “We don’t know anything about who Molly was before. We have no idea what shady shit he was into.”

“Right, ok. So we know they’ve got a day’s head start,” Fjord said, “Rexxentrum is pretty far north, so it’ll take them at least a week to get there, maybe longer. Once we get past the mountains, if we really hustle, maybe take a few shortcuts, we might be able to catch them before they get there.”

“A whole day, though?” Nott asked, “We have no way of knowing where they are right now, how fast they’re moving, what kind of cart they’re driving. We could easily miss them and end up wasting more time.”

“We could go straight to Rexxentrum, then. Jester, you still have the map?” Beau asked.

Jester reached into her bag and pulled out the map of the Empire. She laid it down on the ground and smoothed it out. They looked over the roads, the wild space, the mountains, the forests, and speculated which roads they might take to get to the capital. In the end, they could find no roads that would be faster than the route Astrid’s people probably took. Beau sighed and rested her head in her hands.

“Well, nevermind that, I guess,” she said.

“Could we send a few people ahead on horseback?” Nott asked, “If a few of us rode through the night we might stand a chance.”

“Maybe. I’m just worried about what kind of security they might have sent with Molly,” Fjord said, “Wouldn’t do us much good if a few of us got to Molly and realized we couldn’t do anything anyway.”

“Might be our best bet, though,” Beau said.

“Caleb, you know more about the Assembly than I do. If we weren’t able to get to Molly before he got to Rexxentrum, ‘bout how long would it take them to get organized? What kind of spells would they have to use if they were gonna try and restore his memory?” Fjord asked.

“Ah, well, I am no expert on healing magic,” Caleb said, “but I know that...that spells like _Greater Restoration_ can _remove_ false memories. I do not know about restoring lost ones. Honestly, without knowing what caused Mollymauk’s amnesia in the first place, I could not even begin to speculate on what might work.

“What about the people there? There anyone they’d have to bring in who might take a few days to get there? Or would they have everyone they need already?”

“They could, but I am not sure,” Caleb said, “Look, I think we should sleep on this. It has been a long day, and we need to get out of town while there is still some light.”

Beau frowned, as if trying to read his expression.

“Yeah, I agree,” she said.

“No arguments here, I suppose. Let’s pack up,” Fjord said.

They doused what was left of the fire and gathered up any leftover mess from lunch. Yasha passed the leftovers to Beau and Nott, which the two devoured happily once they were seated in the cart. Jester climbed up into the driver’s seat, and once everyone was ready, they set off down the road. Caleb leaned his head against the back of the driver’s seat and closed his eyes. The storm of panicky thoughts he knew was coming hadn’t hit him just yet - he was still in a state of shock over the whole thing - and he wanted to render himself unconscious before it got the chance. Thankfully, despite the noise of the road, he was able to doze off after a few minutes and sink into silent darkness.

He came to when the cart stopped.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the lake. The moon reflected off the water, shedding light on the short trees around them and on the opposite lakeshore not even a mile away. A few insects buzzed around in the darkness, and somewhere in the distance he could hear an owl hooting. The air smelled damp and earthy, and the ground felt soft beneath him as he climbed out of the cart with the others to make camp.

“Where are we?” he asked, “How long was I asleep?”

“‘Bout an hour,” Fjord said, “It was just gettin’ too dark to see anything, and we all need a proper night’s rest. We’re just half a mile off the road or so.”

“And we are hidden from the road from here?” he asked.

“So long as we don’t light any fires or anything.”

Caleb nodded, satisfied. They pitched one of their tents at the base of the largest tree in the area. Even though the tent would help them stay warm through the night, it couldn’t banish the cold completely. Jester suggested they should all huddle for warmth, but only herself, Beau, and Nott seemed keen on the idea. They started piling all their blankets and bedrolls together, arguing about how exactly to lay everything out. Yasha muttered something about taking first watch and started for the treeline where she could get a better view of the road. As she turned away, her gaze seemed far away. Caleb frowned, muttered something to the others about joining her, and followed her. He caught up with her as she found a fallen log to sit on just inside the trees.

He hovered for a moment, hands in his pockets.

“Ah…” he started, “Are you...how are you doing? I have not had many chances to talk to you, but I imagine this is...difficult, Molly being a good friend of yours and all.”

She looked up at him, her face expressionless.

“Hm?”

“How are you doing?” he repeated, “How are you...holding up?”

“Do you want the honest answer or the nice answer?” she asked.

“I think the nice answer defeats the purpose of me asking.”

She sighed and looked back out towards the road. She looked down at her hands, then nodded towards the log. He walked over and sat down.

“I’m, ah...I’m not doing...great,” she muttered, “I guess I’m just...I’m really worried about all of this. About Molly, and about us going and getting him. I’m just not sure how this is going to work.”

He sighed.

“Ya, I...I don’t know. I have my own...reservations about the whole thing,” he said.

“But I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself if I just abandoned him,” she said.

“No. No of course not,” he agreed, “No, we cannot leave him. I agree.”

“Do you have a plan yet? Anything at all?”

“No. Not yet,” he said, “It was easier to plan when there was just one spellcaster and only a handful of guards to deal with. Rexxentrum is a whole other animal. But I will come up with something. We will figure this out.”

“I know, it’s just...it’s hard for me to see a scenario where we come out on top, you know?”

He laughed bitterly.

“Ya. I know all about that,” he said.

“Guess all we can do is move forward.”

He paused and nodded, listening to the sound of the wind rustling the leaves and the distant lapping of the water against the lakeshore.

“Yes, I suppose so."

* * *

The night after his and Astrid’s conversation - the night before he would fail to be found among the Embassy’s occupants - Molly was woken up by a cloak being thrown in his face.

“Get up,” the one Molly recognized as Claus snarled, “We’re leaving.”

“Leaving where?” Molly asked, barely awake.

“None of your business, now get up.”

“Since I’m going there, I’d say it is my business-.”

He was cut off as Claus grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet.

“Alright, alright, Christ Almighty, you lot are so pushy,” he muttered.

Claus pointed to the cloak, now on the ground where it had landed after hitting Molly.

“Put that on,” he said.

“Better than a bag, I suppose,” Molly said, picking it up and draping it over his shoulders.

No sooner had he done that when the other guard clapped a pair of manacles on him. Attached to the chain that linked the two cuffs was another, longer length of chain, which the guard gave a good yank to ensure it was a secure. Molly flinched as he stumbled a half step forward. He sighed.

“This is what we’re doin’ then?” he asked.

“Shut up,” the guard said, grabbing Molly’s hood and pulling it over his head, “Keep your head down and your mouth shut, or I’ll shut it for you.”

Molly, shook his head, trying to get the hood far enough up so he could see where he was going. He nearly ran into the cell bars as the guard pulled him forward into the aisle between the two cells. Outside it was night. The streets were empty and silent. In an alley behind the embassy, a simple cart with one horse was waiting. The guards put Molly in the back on a bench near the driver’s seat and locked his chains to a sturdy iron ring embedded in the floor. Clearly this was not the first time they’d used this cart to transport prisoners.

They made their way out of the city without seeing so much as a passing patrol, which Molly found disappointing. He’d wanted to see what his new friends would do if he tried to call the guards over. He wondered if it was illegal to kidnap city residents, or if being a wanted criminal gave his captors a pass. Now he would never know. Before long they were making their way past the farms on the outskirts and then through the grassy plains beyond. As the city lights disappeared behind them, Claus lit a torch to light the way.

Molly decided there was no point in trying to get back to sleep. He instead focused on the manacles, wondering if there was a way for him to pick them. He had nothing left on him that could be fashioned into a tool, so he’d have to get creative. Claus’s friend seemed to have the same idea, as he climbed over the back of the driver’s seat and sat across from him in the back of the cart. Molly smiled and waved.

“Hello there,” he said, “Got a name?”

“To you, I’m sir,” he rumbled.

“That doesn’t sound like a real name. Are you messing with me?”

“No.”

The guard stared him down, but Molly wasn’t fazed. He was a big man, even bigger than Claus who already stood almost a whole head taller than Molly. He’d initially thought this man was human, but getting a closer look, he realized there must be some orc in there somewhere. He didn’t have the tusks or the greenish skin, but his facial features weren’t quite human, and his ears were gently pointed. An odd scar with smooth edges ran up the side of his face, creating a shallow divot along his temple. The shape reminded Molly of a mussel shell, almost.

“I’m gonna call you Shelly. You look like a Shelly to me,” he said.

Shelly didn’t seem to like that, but he didn’t comment. He knew if he spoke, Molly would just talk more.

“Alright, one question. Answer this one question for me, and I’ll be quiet the rest of the night. Sound alright?”

Shelly just grunted.

“Excellent,” Molly said, “Where are we going?”

“Rexxentrum,” Claus said, “Now shut the fuck up.”

Just as he thought, which could only mean a future full of invasive mind probing awaited him. A little amnesia wasn’t going to deter the most powerful mages in the land. He wanted to hang on to the staunch hope that he’d be rescued soon, but unless his party had been staking out the embassy or anticipating his transfer, they wouldn’t reach him before he reached the capital. It could be weeks before he saw them again. If not longer. If ever.

He put a stop to that train of thought immediately. He didn’t want to think about it. He really _really_ didn’t want to think about it. He stared out at the plains. Stared at the torch. Stared at his hands. Ran his fingers over the end of Caleb’s scarf. Dug his nails into his palms to feel the way it stung.

As the city lights disappeared from view completely, he finally fell silent.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have wifi, yay! Shorter chapter this time, but we're nearing the homestretch, folks. Enjoy :P

The group woke early to rain pouring over their campsite and got on the road before the sun had even fully risen. After hashing out plan after plan, they finally decided that staying together and trying to catch up to Molly and his captors by keeping a fast pace where possible was the safest plan. Splitting up or taking shortcuts was just too risky, and time was not on their side. Jester and Nott tried to be optimistic, reasoning that if they switched out horses frequently to keep them from getting too tired, they might be able to maintain a fast pace. Their target probably wouldn’t do that, right? They might have a better chance at finding Molly than they thought. Caleb appreciated the attempt, but he wasn’t sure he bought it. They were going to Rexxentrum one way or the other. In his opinion, they needed to start planning for that eventuality.

To start, Caleb knew he’d have to be disguised constantly while out in public. He wasn’t willing to take it on faith that everyone else in the Assembly would make Astrid’s mistake. He had to assume that if someone he knew saw enough of him, they would recognize him. If he was recognized, he would, best case scenario, be arrested. Worst case scenario, they would kill him on the spot.

In either circumstance, anyone he was seen with would be in danger. Again, he was reminded of the conversation he needed to have. Again, it made him feel sick.

The rain refused to let up, and though the canvas over their wagon kept them dry, it couldn’t keep them warm. After several miserable hours of travel, they pulled off the road and stopped at the base of a tall bluff that at kept the worst of the wind at bay. Beau and Yasha started putting together lunch while Nott and Fjord took care of the horses. After putting up a tarp so they could light a campfire and stay dry while they rested, Caleb pulled Jester aside.

“Jester, you have a disguise kit, correct?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ve got one of those,” Jester replied, “Why?”

“I may have need of it when we get to the capital.”

“Why do you need a disguise kit to disguise yourself? Can’t you use magic to do that?”

“Well, yes, I can, but not forever, and I may want to stay disguised the whole time we are in town.”

“In case someone else recognizes you?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Yeah, no problem. Although, you might want me to help you, so you don’t fuck up and look like a clown.”

“Who’s lookin’ like a clown now?” Fjord asked as he and Nott ducked under the tarp.

“Don’t fuck it up,” Kiri said, imitating Jester.

“I was just asking Jester if I could borrow her disguise kit when we arrive in Rexxentrum,” Caleb said.

“Right,” Fjord said, a curious expression crossing his face, “You worried someone else there might recognize you?”

“Yes,” Caleb replied, “We will be getting up close and personal with members of the Cerberus Assembly, none of whom are my friends.”

Fjord raised an eyebrow.

“So Astrid’s beef with you wasn’t just personal?” he asked.

Caleb’s heart began beating faster.

“How did you manage to piss of the whole Assembly??” Jester asked, “Did you fill all their shoes with spaghetti or something?”

“Ah...no,” Caleb said, “But safe to say, if I am recognized - by anyone - I will be arrested.”

Beau looked up from the pot of beans she was stirring, but didn’t say anything. Next to Fjord, Nott tensed. Caleb put his hands in his pockets as his palms began to sweat. Fjord fixed him with an intensely suspicious look, as if trying to read his mind just by reading his face.

“Why’s that? I know you and Nott were both in jail together, but I wasn’t under the impression you were both wanted by the highest authority in the land,” Fjord said.

“No, Nott has nothing to do with that. We were arrested for theft, nothing more,” Caleb said.

“Then why would you be wanted by the Assembly?”

“That is...well, that is a long story,” Caleb said, casting his eyes downward, “One I have been meaning to tell you all, but…well I suppose it was not relevant until yesterday.”

Fjord frowned, incredulous.

“Not relevant how?” he asked, “We’ve been skirtin’ around the Empire’s people for months now, pickin’ fights with the Guard, and you didn’t think you being a wanted criminal was relevant?”

“You knew Caleb and I were criminals, how does him being wanted by the Assembly specifically change anything?” Nott asked.

“Bein’ petty thieves is different from having an active bounty on your head. Especially when we’ve been breaking into prisons, entering tournaments, and _assassinating government officials._ Not to mention all the work we’ve been doin’ for the Gentleman. Look I know we’re not a cautious group, I mean shit some of this stuff was my fuckin’ idea, but I might have thought twice if I’d known there was a chance you’d be recognized and arrested,” Fjord said.

“Thought twice about what exactly?” Nott asked, her voice low and tense.

Fjord glanced down at her.

“About how we went about it! Nothing may have happened yet, but there’s things we could have done to better protect ourselves, Caleb especially,” he said, “Jesus, Nott, what did you think I was tryin’ to say?”

Beau stood up.

“Ok, let's talk about this later,” she said, “This is getting a little...intense.”

Caleb looked at her.

“Intense? Beau, Fjord and I have had worse discussions. _We_ have had worse discussions. By my standards this is very pleasant,” he said.

“I know, I know, I just…” Beau sighed, “I just know this whole thing is hard to talk about, and maybe talking about it right now isn’t the best idea, ok?”

He scoffed.

“I am not a child, Beauregard. I am not _fragile_ ,” he said.

“No one’s sayin’ that,” Fjord said, “but maybe she’s right. Maybe we should all just cool off. If this is gonna get serious maybe it should wait.”

“Yeah I’m with Fjord,” Jester said quietly, though her comment mostly went ignored.

“We can start planning our approach now, keepin’ in mind Caleb’s situation, and get the details later,” he continued.  

“And the details do not _m_ _atter_ in making a plan?” Caleb asked, “This has already come up, the conversation has started, let’s get it out of the way.”

“Caleb…” Nott said, taking a step forward. He looked at her, at the look in her eyes, full of concern and tender care, and he felt his frustration reach its peak. He released a breathy, indignant laugh.

“You all just...keep on trying to protect me. You-you dance around me like I am made of glass, saying everything will be ok, that this is not my fault, that I am a good person, but you do not _understand,_ at all, what you are saying!” he said, “Mollymauk was protecting me, and see what that got him. He would not have been in that situation in the first place if I had told you what was going on from the start, but no, of course I had to protect my secrets first and my friends second! You should not be protecting me from everyone else, I should be protecting you from myself! Nott, Beau, I _told_ you what happened! I told you everything, and...and…”

He sighed in frustration, the words in his head swirling around, trying to form coherent sentences, and falling short. Beau crossed her arms.

“Ok, so what? What are we supposed to do? Do you _want_ us to hate you?” she asked.

“No! No, of course not!” he said, “But that does not mean I do not _deserve_ it.”

Fjord sighed and held his hand up.

“Caleb-,” he started.

“No, do not. Do not tell me to calm down. You want to know, don’t you? You asked why the Assembly was after me, so I will tell you,” Caleb said, “I am a liability to them. I know things about them I should not, and I have done things for them that would make their people riot if they knew. To them, I am a traitor of the worst kind because to them I was an investment.”

Beau and Nott’s eyes went wide, but neither tried to stop him. It was far too late for that now.

“When I was young I studied magic at the Soltryce Academy, and I pledged my life to the Empire. I would have done anything to prove my loyalty, and I did. I have killed dozens of people, in cold blood, and without hesitation. I helped the Empire root out traitors whose crimes I did not even bother to question. All that before I was even made a full member. And that is not even the worst of it. Do you want to know what I had to do in order to graduate? Do you want to know what I did, Fjord?”

No one spoke. No one had the courage to. Everyone else stared at him with rising apprehension, but Fjord stared Caleb down, his expression unchanging.

“I went back to my home,” Caleb continued, “We backed a cart up against the door of my house, and while my mother and father were still inside, I set my home on fire. I burned that house to the ground, and I killed them. And when I realized what I had done, the weight of everything I had done came crashing down on me at once. I went insane, and spent the next ten years of my life in a mental asylum, until I killed the man guarding me and escaped, taking all of mine and the Empire’s filthy secrets with me.”

He didn’t look at anyone else’s expression. He didn’t want to. He focused solely on Fjord whose face was stony and impossible to read beyond the thoughtful look the half-orc gave him.

“I am a monster, Fjord. I am a despicable person; I am a danger to all of you, and I have been trying to hide that because I am a selfish coward who is afraid to be alone again,” Caleb continued. He paused and took a deep breath, coming down from his anger, “You should not waste your concern on me.”

Fjord paused. Nodded. Took a breath. The sound of Caleb’s own heartbeat was deafening in his ears.

“Is that all?” Fjord asked.

“Yes, that is all.”

Caleb finally glanced at the others. Nott was frozen, hands curled into fists. Yasha’s face was unreadable, but she didn’t seem angry or horrified. Jester, for once in her life, was speechless. She was frozen, her eyes shining with tears that refused to spill just yet. The way her eyes darted around the group, it was as if she was searching for something to say, but she couldn’t find the words. All she could do was stand there in numb shock. One hand rested over her mouth. Her other hand rested on top of Kiri’s head. Caleb’s breath seized in his chest when he saw the little kenku, clinging to Jester’s leg and staring at him. She’d heard the whole thing. Suddenly nothing around him felt real anymore. If he took a step backwards, it felt like there would be nothing there to catch him, and he would fall through the earth into the void itself.

_You disgusting, despicable-._

“I...this was a mistake,” he muttered, turning away from the group.

_I knew I would fuck it up, I knew this would happen._

“I am going for a walk,” Caleb said, “I will be back in an hour. Do not follow me.”

“Caleb-,” Nott said, but he ignored her.

“I mean it,” he said, already heading for the edge of the bluff, towards a place where it curved and where he could get out of sight of the group sooner rather than later. Behind him he heard Beau mutter something along the lines of “oh _fuck.”_ He picked up his pace and shoved his hands in his pockets.

As he rounded the corner, he realized how badly his hands and legs were shaking, though he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from fear. Rain was pouring down his back, and his clothes were quickly soaked. He lost track of how far he walked before he finally stopped, waist deep in the sopping grass that hugged the side of the bluff. He gripped his coat, pulling it tighter, wondering if he pulled it tight enough if he could squeeze himself down into a sliver and disappear. He took a deep breath in the freezing air, and finally the dam broke. He sank to his knees, knuckles turning white and aching, as tears finally began streaking down his face.

He stayed there until the rain began to taper to an icy drizzle. He could barely feel his fingers, but still he didn’t feel like getting up. The sound of footsteps broke him out of his daze and he tensed.

“Nott, I do not want to talk about this,” he said, his voice coming out more choked than he’d meant it to. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat.

“It’s me.”

The sound of Yasha’s voice surprised him, but he didn’t look at her. He could feel her body heat radiating off of her as she walked up right next to him. She towered over him, arms crossed.

“You happy with yourself now?” she asked, her voice firm, “You say everything you needed to say, make everyone feel as shitty as you do?”

He scoffed. 

“Yes, Yasha, why do you think I am moping in the rain by myself?” he asked, reaching up and raking his dripping hair out of his face.

“Ok then, do you want to stop feeling sorry for yourself and actually get off your ass and do something now?” she asked, “Do you actually want to fix this?” 

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have a sarcastic response to that. 

“If you do, then help me come up with a plan,” Yasha continued, “Molly is still out there, and at this rate, nothing we try as a group is going to work. Everyone in Rexxentrum is way more powerful than us. We’ll all get ourselves killed, and you know it. But you know how the Assembly works. You have enough spells to either bluff or blast your way past anything. You’re the best person for this job. And if you don’t think your life is worth protecting, then the least you can do is throw it away for something good.” 

He glanced up at her out of the corner of his eye, then back down at the earth beneath him. A smile crept across his face, and he laughed. He hauled himself to his feet. 

“Keep moving forward, as you said,” he muttered, wringing water out of the ends of his coat. 

She paused, and for a moment her stern expression cracked. 

“But, like...don’t actually...die, ok?” she asked, “The others are going to be pissed as it is.” 

“If you think that is best,” he said, looking over at her, “Tell me what you have in mind.”


	8. Chapter 8

Stimulating conversation was non-existent in the company of Claus and Shelly, and it was driving Molly up the wall. Sleeping was difficult, and it wasn’t like the Empire kept coloring books in the back for their prisoners. In the end he had to settle for watching the landscape pass by to distract himself from his own anxiety.

The land around the coast was mostly flat with gently rolling hills here and there. In the distance he could see the mountains rising up to meet them, their caps accumulating snow quickly in the colder climate. He shivered at the thought of what laid beyond. By the coast the worst they had to contend with was the rain, but on the other side of the mountains, winter had the Dwendalian Empire firmly in its clutches. He hadn’t experienced many winters, but he was sure this was the worst one yet. The snow never seemed to let up, beautiful as it was, and they’d been forced to stop and wait out storms more than once on their way south. At least when they got past the mountains the cold meant his captors would be miserable too.

They stopped one more time before entering the mountains, in a tiny village whose whole industry seemed to be supplying travelers for their journeys. One building advertised hired guides. Another sold rations and mountaineering equipment. Molly would have loved to talk to one of the guides, ask them about the mountains and what kinds of things they’d seen, but they never got close enough to town to even wave at a passerby. Claus left him and Shelly on the outskirts while he got supplies by himself.

“How many times you been through these mountains?” Molly asked.

“Three times,” Shelly replied.

That was the most Molly was able to get out of him.

When Claus returned, extra rations in tow, they set out again into the first of the mountain passes, far from the eye of civilization and the high afternoon sun.

The change in temperature was immediate, and it only got worse as it got darker. They meandered through narrow, snow-filled passes and along rugged stone ledges, listening to the howling of the wind among the rocks and the occasional chittering of mountain hawks. Much as he tried to appreciate the beauty around him, Molly couldn’t stop thinking about how that town would have been the best place to try and escape before they entered Imperial territory. It was a thin wire he walked, somewhere between blind optimism that the Nein would figure out _some_ way to liberate him before they reached the capital, and demoralizing realism that they would never catch up and probably wouldn’t be able to do anything to help him with the Crown’s Guard _and_ the Assembly watching him. The only way to keep himself from teetering too far one way or the other was to come up with escape plans himself.

Figuring out an escape plan turned out to be only a little less stressful than sitting on his hands and panicking about the future. Working his manacles loose and jumping out of the cart wasn’t an option with Shelly watching him the whole time. The best he could manage was working a large splinter of wood out of the bench he sat on, disguising his hunt for lock picking implements as simple boredom. He wouldn’t get a chance to use it until they stopped to rest.

He’d watched their actions the first time they stopped, the morning after leaving the coast. Claus and Shelly had a very set routine that they settled into effortlessly. One was always watching him, no matter what the other was doing. They never removed the manacles for anything, and his chains were never loose. If someone wasn’t holding them, they would lock them to something whether it was a tree or a sign post. They always kept him close, but at least they didn’t always have a hand on him. It would have to be one of those times where he made his move. If he could just get one hand free, he might be able to grab a sword or a dagger or _something_ and surprise them. If he could do it while one of them was sleeping, that would be best. He told himself over and over again that it wasn’t a bad plan, but something in the pit of his stomach warned him that it was a long shot.

Still. He had to try. It wasn’t like they would kill him if he failed.

As the sun went down, they stopped at the bottom of a pass under a high ledge that jutted out of the side of the mountain. Snow drifts piled up against the rocks, but under the ledge there was very little accumulation. Judging by the scorch marks on the rocks on the ground and the arrangement of boulders into makeshift stools, this was a popular place for travelers to stop. Molly wondered if it would be wiser to wait another day and try this in an area that wasn’t so much of a box, but his anxiety wouldn’t let him consider it. The longer they traveled, the closer they got to Rexxentrum, the more it felt like his body was full of storm clouds, rumbling and swirling and growing and filling up every corner of his gut until there was no more room, begging for release. He had to do _something_ before he completely lost his mind. This would have to do.

Claus unhooked Molly’s chains from the iron loop in the floor of the cart and pulled him over to where Shelly was constructing a fire. Claus’s eyes scanned the area, but he didn’t seem to find what he was looking for. He frowned.

“Should I just leave him in the cart?” he asked, “Not much to tie him to around here.”

“No. Too hard to watch there,” Shelly said.

The larger man looked up from his task and contemplated their predicament. After a moment he stood up and walked to the cart. He rifled around in their sack of supplies and produced a long iron piton and a hammer. He tossed them to Claus.

“Stick that in the ground,” Shelly said.

“Ah, that’s clever. You’re just full of surprises, Shelly,” Molly said.

Shelly glowered at him. Claus clapped his hand down on Molly’s shoulder and gave him a hard shove onto the ground near the fire pit. Molly managed to catch himself, expecting this sort of abuse, and sat down with his legs neatly folded as Claus drove the piton through one of the links in Molly’s chains and then hammered it into the hard earth. With their prisoner secured, the men went about making a fire and cooking their supper.

After a couple hours of loafing around and idle conversation, Claus turned in for the night, leaving the first watch to Shelly.

In the shifting light of the campfire and under what little cover his cloak provided him, Molly slipped the splinter free of where he’d hidden it in his shirt and began working on the manacle around his right hand. Progress was painfully slow. He practically had to do it without looking in order to avoid suspicion, and frequent stops were necessary. However, as time went on and the moon marched higher into the sky, Shelly’s attention began to slip for longer periods of time, and Molly’s work went more quickly.

As the moon reached its apex, Molly finally hit the pin. He gave the splinter a sharp twist and heard a click.

His heart began pounding. He wanted to move now, but he forced himself to stay still, not look at his hands, not jangle the chains. He couldn’t free his hand without arousing suspicion. He would have to make his move before that. He looked at Shelly sitting next to him. He looked at Shelly’s war hammer sitting on the ground. He looked at Claus asleep on the other side of the fire. He eyed the long sword next to his bedroll. He looked down at the manacles and noticed a short bit of flawed metal, jagged enough, perhaps, to draw blood. He took a deep breath. Then he struck.

He threw himself sideways and struck the side of Shelly’s face with his heel. The larger man shouted in surprise, instinctively throwing his hands up to protect himself. Molly scrambled to his feet and pulled on the chain with all his strength. The piton gave way and the chain snapped up into the air. In one swift moment he freed his right hand from the manacles and dragged his palm across the jagged metal on the cuff. Light burst from the manacles and rapidly flowed down the length of the chain, bathing the area in a soft white glow. As Shelly got to his feet, Molly grasped the chain in both hands, swung it back around, and brought it down on Shelly’s shoulders with as much force as he could manage. It didn’t do much damage, but it was enough to startle him. On the other side of the campfire, Claus startled awake.

With Shelly distracted, Molly vaulted over the dying campfire and made a dive for Claus’s weapons. Claus’s eyes widened when he saw Molly rushing towards him, and he lunged for his longsword. He wasn’t quite fast enough. Molly brought the chain around again, striking the side of Claus’s head before snatching up the sword. Behind him he heard Shelly bellow in rage. He heard the sound of the war hammer scraping through the dirt as its owner took it up. Molly made a blind strike at Claus with the sword, a blow which the other man rolled away from with ease. Shelly’s footsteps thundered across the ground as he ran up right behind Molly.

Molly darted to the side as the hammer came down and struck the hard packed dirt. Claus jumped to his feet and pulled a dagger from his belt. Molly slashed at Shelly with the sword and connected with his arm. Shelly shied back as blood flowed from the gash and dripped onto the ground. Claus rushed forward and slashed at Molly with the dagger, which Molly easily parried. He lashed out at Claus with the chain again, but there wasn’t enough force behind the motion. The chain grazed against Claus’s leg harmlessly and flew right into his open palm.

Molly’s arm jerked forward as Claus pulled the chain taught, rendering Molly’s left hand immobile. Instead of fighting the movement, Molly let his momentum carry him forward and, he jabbed the sword into Claus’s hip. Claus shouted in pain. His grip on the chain loosened. Molly yanked his cuffed arm back and prepared to make another strike just as Shelly came running towards him again.

Molly’s eyes went wide as Shelly raised the hammer above his head and brought it crashing down. Molly managed to dart backwards in time to avoid having his head caved in, but he couldn’t move fast enough to dodge Shelly’s second swing. The hammer connected with his ribs and sent him staggering sideways. Claus grabbed the chain again and yanked it towards him. It threw Molly off balance, and his momentum sent him crashing to the ground. The stab of pain that tore through Molly’s ribs as he fell stunned him, and in a second Claus was on top of him, trying to stab him with his dagger.

Molly dropped the sword and caught Claus’s wrist with his bloody hand. The blood. The adrenaline. The sight of the dagger hovering above him. It triggered something buried deep in his mind. That familiar tickle of memories not quite his. Old, well refined instincts. A dark hunger thrumming in his veins. It mingled with his surface thoughts, like ink drops in water.

_“Let’s see if you can do the glowing thing on a person!”_

_I can’t. God no, no I can’t._

_“Dealing with this does not mean you will lose yourself.”_

Molly took a deep breath and grit his teeth.

_Caleb, don’t make me regret this._

Then he activated his rite.

Claus shrieked as the blood on his arm glowed and began searing his skin. The light sank down into his flesh; wisps of smoke curled up his hand and into the air. Then it disappeared, leaving a deep, ugly burn. Molly kneed him in the gut and managed to push him off. As Molly heaved himself to his feet, his ribs throbbed in protest, but he pushed himself forward, running, out from under the ledge and into the snow. The cold wormed its way beneath his clothing almost immediately. His heart sank. This was a mistake. He would freeze to death before he even got out of the mountains. He heard an angry yell behind him. Moments later he was tackled back to the ground.

Claus shoved him into the snow, flat on his back, and jumped on him again. He’d taken his sword back, and he pressed the flat of the blade against Molly’s throat. Then he dug his knee into Molly’s gut, and for a split second everything went blurry.

Something was definitely broken. The pain was blinding. Molly knew he was screaming but he could only hear ringing in his ears. The hand he’d raised to strike at Claus froze in the air, his fingers unable to even curl into a fist as he tried to remember how to breathe. The sword crushed down on his throat, and his vision began to swim.

“You worthless piece of shit, I should kill you right now!” Claus spat, “What do you have that’s even worth all this fucking trouble, eh?! A few idiotic comments and a party trick?! I bet if you never got to Rexxentrum, no one would even notice!!”

“Calm down, Claus,” Shelly lumbered, resting the head of his war hammer on the ground, “We can’t kill him even if we wanted to.”

“You shut up! I’m the one in charge of this mission,” Claus hissed, looking back at his companion. The pressure on Molly’s throat lifted just a hair, and he sucked in a weak, desperate breath. Shelly shrugged.

“Ok. Miss Astrid won’t be happy, though. You know how she gets.”

Claus glowered at Shelly, contemplating his options. Finally he lifted the sword. Molly gasped for air and finally unclenched his hand. He coughed once, and then Claus wheeled around and punched him.

“Claus!” Shelly said, coming over and hauling Claus off of Molly, “Temper.”

“Piss off,” Claus spat.

He yanked his arm away from his partner and stalked back towards the campfire. Shelly huffed before looking back at Molly, still lying on the ground in shock. Molly took shallow breaths, trying not to move his torso too much. The bitter cold from the snow was making his whole body go numb, but that was preferable to the searing throb he felt in his ribs. Shelly walked over to him and grabbed him by the wrists.

“No no no, wait-,” he said.

He cried out in pain as Shelly yanked him to his feet. He started to fall forward, but Shelly held him up and dragged him back over to the campfire.

Claus sulked and stared at him as Shelly cuffed Molly’s hands again, behind his back this time, and put the chain back in the ground. As soon as Shelly took his hands off him, Molly rolled over onto his back, groaning in relief as the pressure was taken off his torso. He squeezed his eyes shut. He knew he should be chastising himself for being so stupid, for thinking this could ever work, but the burning ache spreading through his gut was all the punishment he needed. Shelly glared down at him.

“Try that again and it’ll be your legs,” he said.

That was the last anyone said the rest of the night.

* * *

 

 

When the Nein woke the next morning under the shelter of their tarp, they first noticed the absence of one bedroll and then one horse. Nott found the letter pinned to her blanket:

_ I am not good at letters or apologies, but you all deserve to know what is going on. I owe you that much. I would first like to apologize for what I said yesterday. I did not want that conversation to go how it did, but ever since this started, I have not felt quite myself, and that came out in a very ugly way. Please apologize to Kiri for me. _

_ Second, this plan is not a good plan. I think we have all thought that by now. At the pace we are going, we are looking at breaking a man out of a high security prison in the most guarded city in the Empire. Even with our numbers, I do not like our odds, and if we fail, we will be arrested, possibly executed. _

_ But I know we cannot leave Mollymauk. If we leave him, the Assembly will torture him and kill him, and he does not deserve that fate. If we could pick up the pace, perhaps we could reach him sooner, but with all of us and our winter gear, we cannot afford to ditch the cart. So here is my solution: I am going alone.  _

_ By myself I should be able to reach him before he gets to Rexxentrum, eliminating the need for a full scale assault. If I succeed, the rest of you will still be able to move freely, as Mollymauk and I will be the only ones the Empire looks for. If I fail, only I will get hurt. _

_ I cannot carry on like this pretending like my problems cannot hurt the rest of you. Whatever happens, it will be for the best. If I succeed, I do not know when I will see you again. We may have to run and hide for a little while to make sure they do not come after us. If we escape, we will try to leave a message with The Gentleman in Zadash, and then we will try to make our way back to the coast.  _

_ You all have been better friends than I deserve, and I thank you for that. Please stay safe.  _

_ Caleb.  _

Beau was livid, her frustrated rants incomprehensible as the others read over the letter again. Nott stammered and tried to come up with some way to fix this, bring Caleb back, but she knew it was futile. He was long gone by now.

“Did no one see him leave?!” Beau finally said, “We were on watch in pairs! Who was-?!...Yasha. Yasha, did you seem him leave? Did you-did you fall asleep or something?”

“No, I saw him leave,” Yasha said.

A beat of stunned silence.

“And you didn’t stop him?!” Nott cried.

Yasha held up her hands.

“Both of you need to relax,” she said, “I talked to him before he took off, and we both agreed that our current plan wasn’t going to work.”

“Then you should have talked to the rest of us about it,” Fjord said, “We talked already about sending people ahead. That’s something I think we could have agreed on.”

“We didn’t want to waste more time arguing. Look, he’s going to be fine. He’s a smart guy, and I think his logic is sound-.”

“How is any of this sound?!” Beau asked, “He’s only doing this because he feels guilty! How is that sound logic?!”

“Alright, alright, let's take it down a notch,” Fjord said, putting a hand on Beau’s shoulder, “Look I really don’t like this either, but there’s nothin’ we can do about it.”

“Let me go after him. I can catch up to him and either help or talk some sense into him,” Nott said.

“No, Nott, you can’t, what if we lose you too?” Jester said, her eyes wide.

“Ok this does not mean we’ve lost Caleb, and we are not splitting up any more than we already have,” Fjord said.

“So we’re just going to let him risk his life alone?! What if he gets to Molly and it’s not a one person job? What if he needs our help?!” Nott asked.

“Look, I hate to admit it, but Caleb does have a point. We’re going into an unknown situation completely unprepared, and with him up and disappearing that’s just one more variable we’ve gotta contend with. Right now, I think we just need to get to Zadash, see if he’s left us a message, and figure out what we’re doin’ from there.”

“And what about after that? He’s left us fuckin’ high and dry, and he’s the only one who knows a damn thing about where the Cerberus Assembly keeps its prisoners or what their security is like. If he fails and gets arrested, Molly is completely fucked! We know that, right?” Beau said, “Like how are we supposed to get him out?! Yasha, I can’t believe you’re ok with this!”

Yasha sighed.

“We weren’t going to be able to help him all together anyway-,” she said, starting to sound flustered.

“Maybe not, but we had a better chance than we do now!”

“Beau, stop. Just stop. Take a deep breath and calm the fuck down. We need to get on the road,” Fjord said.

For a moment no one said or did anything, only eyed each other with a mixture of anger and exhaustion. Finally Yasha turned and started taking down the tarp over their campsite. Fjord walked over to help her, while Beau continued to fume. Nott stood in place, wringing her hands and looking from person to person with indecision. Kiri stood next to Jester, clutching the hem of the tiefling’s dress. Jester patted her head, but she didn’t speak. Her face was so solemn, Beau barely recognized her. Beau took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down and focus on the people immediately in front of her.

“Jester, are you ok?” she asked.

Jester shook her head and rubbed her eye.

“This is so fucked up,” she muttered.

“Do you...need a hug? Or something?” Beau asked.

“Sure.”

Beau walked over and wrapped her arms around her friend. Jester sniffled against Beau’s shoulders, but didn’t allow herself to start crying outright. Nott wandered closer and hugged Jester as well.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “I’ll...I’ll stay with the group.”

“Are you sure?” Jester asked, lifting her head, “I know you must be really worried about him.”

“I am, but...I dunno, Fjord’s probably right.”

Jester sniffed and stepped back, wiping her eyes again. She looked down at Nott.

“Did you know?” she asked.

“No, he didn’t talk to me about this at all,” Nott replied.

“Not about him leaving,” Jester said, “Did you know about his parents?”

Nott paused and frowned. She looked down at her hands.

“I, ah...I did,” she said, “Not at first, I mean he didn’t tell me about it until that night after the Harvest Close festival, but...I knew.”

“He told me about it then, too,” Beau said.

“He didn’t explain it very well to the rest of you, but it really wasn’t his fault,” Nott said, “There’s a lot of parts he left out, about the academy and the things they did to him. He’s not a bad person.”

“No, no, I know, I just…” Jester paused and took a deep breath, “I just don’t know what to think about it, you know? I just don’t know how anyone could ever...But he’s like my friend, you know? At least I thought we were friends. I never would have thought...thought that he would, you know, _do_ something like that.”

She took another deep breath and threw her hands up in exasperation.

“And he said all of that shit right in front of Kiri! And then he ran off! By himself! Like some kind of stupid idiot, and god I’m so fucking mad at him, I can’t believe-!”

She huffed and crossed her arms.

“I’m going to kick his ass next time I see him,” she said, “Kick his stupid ass into the _fucking_ sun.”

Beau shifted in place, wondering if she should hug her again. Kiri made a sad trilling noise before speaking.

“This is so fucked up,” she said in Jester’s voice.

“Oh god, Kiri…” Beau said, grimacing.

Jester knelt down and hugged the kenku, who accepted with enthusiasm.

“I’m so sorry about all of this, Kiri,” Jester said, “None of this is fair to you, but we’re gonna figure it out, ok? We’re gonna figure this out and we’ll all be back together.”

“Figure it out, ok?” Kiri murmured.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine, kid,” Beau said, “Maybe just not...right away.”

“Are you going to apologize to Yasha?” Nott asked.

“Hm?”

“For shouting at her?”

Beau sighed and frowned.

“I...yeah. Probably. But not now. I’m still mad at her,” she grumbled.

“We ready to go?” Fjord asked as he and Yasha finished loading everything into the cart.

“As we’ll ever be, I suppose,” Nott muttered.

“‘K, then let’s go. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter left, you guys! Man, it's hard to believe it's almost finished. Thank you for all the kind comments, and I'll see you next week <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we are, the final chapter. Time for me to make good on the "happy ending" part of "angst with a happy ending." Again, thank you so much to everyone who has commented and left kudos. I really appreciate all your kind words. 
> 
> I've got more CR fics in the works right now, though much shorter than this one lol. I'm working on a continuation of Words Unspoken, plus maybe another thing? So if you've enjoyed this story and want to see more from me, it'll be coming eventually. :) Enjoy the last chapter, everyone!

Claus sighed.

“Fuckin’ finally,” he muttered.

Molly didn’t even try to get up off the floor of the cart to see what Claus was looking at. He knew doing so would only agitate his broken ribs, and he didn’t want to spoil a day that had so far been the most pain free day he’d had since his escape attempt. The past few days, if his torso wasn’t throbbing, then the rest of his body was aching from the cold winds that whipped around him. It was a struggle to stay completely warm with only his cloak, Caleb’s scarf, and whatever blankets the assholes deigned to give him. He was starting to get used to it, though. Sometimes he could close his eyes, press his face into the scarf, and focus on one single point on his body that the cold hadn’t touched. He could retreat into that one spot of warmth, and at least for a little while, the wind and snow couldn’t touch him. And when it was too intense to ignore, he imagined dissolving into snow and flying up into the sky, far away from all of this, back to the people he’d started thinking of as family. It helped.

He looked up at Shelly, sitting in the same place as always in the back of the cart, who looked out down the road.

“Back again, eh?” he said.

“Feels like we just left the sodding place,” Claus said, “but I’ll be happy to have a place to store the devil for a while so we can stay in a proper inn, instead of camping out in the fucking snow.”

“Why do you hate Zadash so much? Never understood it.”

“I dunno. Don’t like the people I suppose.”

Zadash. They were half way there, then. He wondered absent-mindedly if this could be another good place to try and escape, especially if they were going to pass him off to the prison to watch for a while. The random Crown’s Guards who he’d be stuck with didn’t know what he was capable of. Maybe he could make his way to the Evening Nip and find shelter with the Gentleman’s people for the night, call in a small favor. Leave town in the morning, if at all possible. Maybe he had a chance.

_Or maybe you would have if you didn’t go getting your bones broken. You wouldn’t make it two steps if it came to a fight._

He would have to get clever. The thought made him sigh. He’d only survived this long through sheer force of personality, an occasional dash of common sense, and heaps of good luck. He certainly tried his best, but he was not a clever man. Even so, perhaps an opportunity would present itself. He would just have to be ready for it.

As they approached the gates, snow began falling again. The thick, heavy flakes blended in with the rapidly darkening sky until they came close enough to be illuminated by the torch Claus carried. Before long there was a fine dusting on the floor of the cart and on Molly’s cloak. Despite his numbness to its chill, he looked forward to being indoors again, even if it was in a jail cell.

“Get up,” Shelly said.

Molly tensed as Shelly reached down and grabbed his arm. He pulled him upright, and Molly hissed quietly in pain as he was forced into a sitting position. He caught a glimpse of the wall surrounding the city, barely visible in the dim dusk light save for where the stone was illuminated by torches, before Shelly yanked his hood over his head again. The cart stopped at the gate, and Molly could hear the voices of Crown’s Guards speaking to other people entering the city. Who are you? What’s your business? It made his blood run cold. The city hadn’t been on lockdown like this the last time they were here. Had something happened? Or was this all just because of the war? They hadn’t heard much on their march south, but from what they’d gathered, it was only escalating. Seemed it wasn’t confined to the border anymore.

“State your name and business,” a guard said, approaching their cart.

Claus reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a letter and a silver medallion with the symbol of the Righteous Brand stamped in it, which he handed to the guard.

“Claus Ertog and Surghed Frostcutter-,”

Molly blinked and looked at Shelly.

“Your name is _what?_ ”

Claus ignored him.

“-members of the Righteous Brand, on our way to Rexxentrum with a prisoner.”

The guard looked at the letter and at the medallion, then around Claus towards Shelly and Molly. He walked to the back of the cart and looked at Shelly. Shelly didn’t say anything, only nodded. The guard nodded back and gestured towards Molly.

“So who’s this then?” he asked.

Molly took a breath and mustered up a smile.

“Name’s Molly,” he said, “I’m in for petty theft and knowing too little.”

“Right,” the guard said. He looked back at Claus, “Carry on.”

Claus snapped the reins, and their cart lurched forward through the gate and into the city. Molly’s smile disappeared, and he looked out into the throngs of people behind them, all waiting to enter. There were plenty of merchants and wealthier visitors driving carts, some riding on horseback, and even more people on foot. The man directly behind them seemed moderately wealthy judging by his robes. Molly had never seen him before in his life, but his horse caught his eye. It was like about any other bay horse in the Empire, but the white stripe on its forehead was unusual with its odd curve at the end. It was strikingly familiar.

_What the hell, is that Toilet?_ he thought, thinking of the unfortunately named horses the Nein kept.

He sat forward and squinted, trying to get a better look, but before he could, the cart moved forward and his view of the gate became hopelessly obscured by the shifting shadows of nighttime descending upon the town.

“Law master’s office first?” Claus asked.

Shelly nodded.

“Hear that, asshole? You’re someone else’s problem now,” Claus said, looking over his shoulder at Molly.

“Oh I’ll be back before you know it,” Molly quipped back.

As they wound through the streets, people started closing up their businesses for the night and going home. The crowds grew thinner away from the wall, and the city went quiet. Molly cast his eyes to the floor of the cart as they passed through a familiar square, where the Harvest Close festival had been held previously. It was silent now, save for the creak of the wagon wheels and the thud of the horse’s hooves against the hard packed earth. Turned white by the snow and devoid of the crowds and colorful decor, it didn’t even look like the same place.

Behind him he could hear the trotting of a second horse. He lifted his head and looked out into the dim lantern light as a horse and rider entered the square, the same well dressed merchant who was behind them at the gate. He felt a swift spike of adrenaline as the rider began to follow them at a short distance, but it faded as soon as the horse turned and began walking down another street further behind them. He stifled a sigh, feeling silly for getting his hopes up. Then as he watched snowflakes land in his lap, he heard a quiet voice with a soft Zemnian lilt whispering into his mind.

_“Stay put. I am coming for you.”_

Molly snapped his head up and stared back into the square as they left it behind. He didn’t see anyone, but that was alright with him. Just hearing Caleb’s voice was enough to make his eyes water with relief. He tried to control the torrent of thoughts all trying to escape at once so he wouldn’t send back something irreparably garbled. In the end the best he could manage was, _“You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice.”_

No reply came, but he didn’t expect one. Didn’t need one. It was enough.

If Claus or Shelly noticed his sudden change in mood, they didn’t care. Their pace never changed, and neither of them said a thing as they continued down the street towards the lawmaster’s office. As they neared the robust stone building that housed the courthouse and the jail, Molly immediately began analyzing the scene. There were two guards posted outside, which brought the number of opponents to four, but that was nothing. Even without his help, these guards would be easy to pick off for the Nein. He just wished he knew when they were going to strike and what their plan was. He looked out into the other streets and silently asked Caleb what he should do, as if by some previously undiscovered magic the wizard could hear him.

They came to a halt by the front door. Claus climbed down from the cart and approached the guards, brandishing the Righteous Brand medallion once again. He explained the situation to them in a hushed tone, then turned to confer with Shelly.

“You stay out here with him,” Claus said, “I’ll tell the lawmaster about our situation, make sure we can keep him here.”

Shelly nodded, and Claus turned and walked inside. Three enemies now. Even better. He heard Caleb’s voice in his head again.

_“Tell me what their plan is,”_ Caleb whispered.

_“They want to leave me here for the night. They’re asking the lawmaster about it now,”_ Molly replied silently, eyeing Shelly and the guards who seemed more bored than anything.

_“Ok. How is your condition? Can you fight?”_

_“Uh, that’s gonna be a soft no. Fractured rib. Tell you later.”_

A brief pause.

_“Ok, that is bad,”_ Caleb whispered, _“but maybe we can use it. Do you think you could get them to take you to the hospital?”_

_“Darling, who do you think you’re talking to?”_

_“So that is a yes?”_

_“It’s an ‘absolutely.’”_

No further messages came. It was on him now. Molly took a breath and coughed. Nothing heavy. Nothing serious. Just a little something to get everyone warmed up. You couldn’t move too quickly with these things. The key to a good con was patience, after all.

He waited a beat until the silence was just starting to feel comfortable. Then he coughed again, a few soft coughs that sent a brief throb of pain through his ribs. He ignored it. He knew if he did this right he’d have to put up with far worse. He waited again. Coughed again, loud enough to startle one of the guards at the door. Shelly finally took notice and glanced down at him.

“Something wrong?” he asked, a note of irritation in his voice.

“Ah…” Molly started, drawing in a tight breath. He gave Shelly a half-hearted grin, “Why do you ask? Don’t tell me you actu-.”

He let another fit wrack his body and grimaced. Shelly leaned forward, eyes narrowed. Molly sucked in another shaky breath and opened his mouth to speak, but he stopped, as if his fit was too strong for him to say anything. He coughed again, adding a little wheeze for effect, then doubled over as he allowed himself to give in to the serious jolts of pain now coursing through his torso from strain. His coughs grew strangled and desperate. Shelly and the two guards shifted, now actually somewhat concerned.

“Uh...is he alright?” one of the guard asked.

“Don’t know,” Shelly muttered.

He stood up in the cart, then crouched down next to Molly.

“If you’re faking this, you’re gonna be sorry,” he growled.

“I-...I can’t. Breathe,” Molly wheezed.

He bit the inside of his cheek, and as he feigned another convulsion, he spit blood onto the floor of the cart. Shelly’s eyes went wide.

“Oh shit,” he hissed.

He stood up.

“Do you have a doctor?” he asked.

The guards stared back at him, their eyes wide with panic.

“A doctor?” one asked.

“Inside, do you have a doctor,” Shelly repeated.

“N-no. No, not inside, no,” the guard said.

More hacking. More blood. A rattling breath. Molly slumped to the floor of the cart. Shelly swore again and got in the driver’s seat.

“What the hell is happening to him?” the other guard asked.

“Hit him with my hammer back in the mountains,” Shelly said, “Didn’t think I hurt him that bad. Guess I was wrong. Which way is the hospital?”

“Just bring him inside, we’ll call a doctor,” the guard said.

“How long will that take?”

“I dunno.”

Shelly shook his head.

“Can’t risk him dying on us. Miss Astrid would have our heads. The hospital?”

“Fine. It’s that way.”

“Thank you.”

Molly heard the reins snap and felt the cart lurch forward. He winced as the cart bumped over the cobblestone streets, but he didn’t dare try to right himself to make the ride more comfortable. He gave another wheezing, rattling breath accompanied by a few weak coughs, but other than that he fell silent as he tried to figure out what to do next.

It felt like forever before they reached the hospital, and the cart finally came to a stop. Shelly got down from the driver’s seat, and Molly watched his shadow pass in front of the torchlight as he walked around the cart. He heard the sound of another horse riding down the street, then slow to a stop next to them.

“Ah, excuse me, I am sorry to bother you, but I think I am lost,” a new but so beautifully familiar voice said.

_Caleb._

“Ask someone else,” Shelly said, lowering the cart’s tailgate.

“I just need two seconds of your time. I am trying to find the Trispire district, but I think I have gotten turned around,” Caleb said.

“Don’t have two seconds. This is a bit of an emergency,” Shelly growled, “Get lost or make yourself useful.”

“Useful? What do you-...oh. Oh dear, I see. Shall I get the doctors?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I should get two. You are not looking so good yourself.”

Molly glanced up from under his hood to Caleb, where he sat atop his horse still disguised as the merchant, just as the wizard finished a quick hand gesture. A sprinkle of sand fell from his fingers. The spell did not escape Shelly’s notice. A look of fear crossed his face. His step wavered. His eyelids drooped. Then his face twisted into a snarl, and the magic dissipated. Caleb’s eyes went wide.

“Why you-!” Shelly snarled.

He rushed to the side of the cart and lunged for his war hammer leaning against the back of the driver’s seat. Molly dropped the act, turned over, and kicked his foot out towards the head of the hammer. The strike unbalanced it enough to knock it to the floor, and Shelly’s hand simply passed through the air. He grit his teeth in frustration, ready to make another grab for his weapon, until a barrage of glowing blue darts smashed into him.

“Molly, hold on to something!” Caleb said.

“How?!” Molly replied, getting cut off as Caleb spooked the horse with a burst of flame and the cart lurched forward down the street.

Molly immediately fell backwards again and smacked his head on the floor of the cart. For a moment his vision went blurry, and the cart’s momentum caused him to slide a few inches across the floor. He panicked and scrambled to brace himself against the sides so he wouldn’t go tumbling out onto the street below. When the shock wore off, he took a deep, pained breath and hauled himself up into a sitting position. He looked out to the street ahead, the wind whipping his hood back, and sighed as the horse kept running.

“Alright, this is what we’re doin’ then,” he breathed.

He looked back the way they came as Caleb came barreling down the street behind him. He wanted to snark at Caleb that he couldn’t exactly stop the cart in his state, but the words died on his tongue. It was enough effort just to keep from being jostled too violently. Caleb came up next to the horse and reached over, trying to get a hand on the now trailing reins. His first pass came up empty, but as the chase carried on, the horse began to slow down, and Caleb managed to snag the reins and pull the cart to a stop.

As soon as he was sure the horse wouldn’t bolt again, Caleb jumped off his own horse and ran over to Molly. He climbed into the cart and immediately started looking at Molly’s manacles. Up close, Molly could see the way his disguise seemed to shimmer and shift, solid in some places, an obvious illusion in others.  

“We don’t have time to do this here,” Molly said, unclenching his teeth and trying to take a deep breath, “Unless you managed to kill him in the span of ten seconds.”

“That would be a negative,” Caleb replied, “But at least we have his weapons, and we will get nowhere until these are off.”

He reached into his coat and pulled out a ratty, stained piece of leather rolled up into a cylinder. Molly glanced back as Caleb unrolled it, revealing a meager set of thieves’ tools. The way Caleb’s hands passed over the hooks and picks and various other tools, he didn’t seem entirely sure where to start. Molly suppressed a groan.

“What are you doing?” he asked, “Are those Nott’s?”

“What does it look like I am doing?” Caleb replied, finally selecting the lock picking tools.

“It looks like you’re way out of your depth. Where’s everyone else?”

Caleb frowned and started working on the lock.

“It’s just me today,” he said.

“They sent you ahead alone?”

“We will talk later. I need to concentrate.”

“Right, right,” Molly sighed, “Nott at least teach you a few things before you left?”

“Mollymauk.”

“Sorry. The pin is tricky. It’s more to the left than you’d expect.”

Molly kept his eyes on the street, trying not to jump at every shadow cast by the flickering lantern light. The falling snow created a constant swirl of movement that made it hard to pick out potential dangers in the dark, even with his darkvision. He took to listening instead, straining to hear any voices or footsteps. All seemed quiet for now, but he didn’t feel calm in the slightest.

He heard a click behind him, and his right hand slipped free of the manacles.

“Oh! Yes!” Caleb whispered. He took a deep breath and moved on to the next cuff, “Ok, ok, ok, I can do this.”

Molly sighed in relief and rolled his shoulder, trying to work out the stiffness. Caleb fumbled with the lock on the second cuff for a bit, but it came undone faster than the first. He then threw the small tool kit back together and shoved it back into his pocket. He stood up and grabbed Molly’s arm.

“Ok, let’s go,” he said.

Molly flinched immediately at the movement and sucked in a sharp breath as his ribs throbbed in protest.

“Gently, gently,” he hissed.

“ _Schieße,_ sorry _,”_ Caleb said, “Alright, hang onto me.”

He tried again to help Molly up, going more slowly this time. Nothing could completely get rid of the aches and pains he felt as he moved, but going slowly helped a little. His knees felt shaky from the days of sitting and meager meals, and he hung onto Caleb’s arm once they got out of the cart, afraid if he let go that he might slide right to the ground.

“Do you think you can get on the horse?” Caleb asked.

“I’m not sure if I can, but I will,” Molly replied.

Caleb climbed up into the saddle first and reached down to give Molly a hand up. Molly grit his teeth as he carefully hauled himself up. He was sure he was hurting Caleb with how tightly he gripped his hand, but he didn’t care. When he settled into the saddle behind Caleb, he released a heavy breath as the burning in his side began to subside.

“Ok, go, go, go,” he said.

Caleb turned the horse down another street and urged it into trot, and then a canter. Molly wrapped his arms around Caleb’s waist and pressed his forehead into his shoulder. He tensed with every bounce, every change in pace, and Caleb murmured every time “Sorry.”

They turned down random streets, weaving deeper and deeper into the city, away from the most patrolled areas into a more middle-class area of town. As soon as they felt they weren’t being followed, Caleb slowed the horse to a walk and finally dispelled his disguise.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Terrible,” Molly muttered.

“We need to stop somewhere. An inn is probably too dangerous, though.”

“Time to call in some favors, I think.”

“I told the others I would leave a message for them with the Gentleman-.”

“We can’t go there.”

“Why not?”

“The last thing I need is for Cree to be there and start asking questions. Or try to help.”

“Right, ah...do you suppose Dolan and Horris would be awake at this hour? They should both be back in town, ya? And they are doctors.”

“Couldn’t hurt to try.”

Caleb turned the horse around, trying his best to remember the path back to the Thrym house. After some trial and error, and backtracking to avoid patrols of Crown’s Guard, they finally arrived at the modest, run-down house. While it was still in shambles, some of the roofing had been fixed since the Nein’s last visit. Hopefully a sign of Dolan’s increasing influence in the city. At first glance, no lights seemed to be lit, but as they got closer they could see a single candle burning in the bedroom.

Caleb got down and knocked on the door. A few seconds passed. Then a few more. Caleb knocked again. After a few seconds, the door opened a crack and the bedraggled face of Horris peered out. He immediately perked up when he saw who it was. He opened the door wider.  

“Oh, it’s you,” he said, “Ah…”

He snapped his fingers.

“...Cayden?”

“It’s Caleb.”

“Right, right, sorry. What the hell are you doing here? Where’s the rest of you?”

“Not in town, currently. I am sorry to impose, but I am in need of a favor.”

“Name it.”

“We just need a place to stay for the night. Mollymauk is injured, and the Guard is after us. I promise we will leave first thing in the morning.”

Horris looked behind him at Molly, still on the horse. Molly gave him a half-hearted wave. Horris frowned and nodded.

“Alright, come in. And hurry,” he said.

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Caleb said.

He helped Molly down and into the house before going back to hide Toilet somewhere in the backyard. Horris immediately sat Molly down on a worn out wooden bench in the sitting area.

“Evening,” Molly said, trying to be casual, but it had become impossible to hide how much pain he was in.

“What happened?” Horris asked, retrieving a bag of medical supplies from a cupboard.

“Bit of a long story. The short version is I got arrested, tried to escape, and got hit with a war hammer. Pretty sure I’ve got a few broken ribs.”

“Dear god,” Horris muttered, rummaging through his supplies, “Did this just happen?”

“No, it’s been like this a few days.”

“Your arrest didn’t have anything to do with us, did it?”

“Oh, no, no, no, you’re safe. This one was all me.”

“And...no one got hurt, did they…?”

“Oh no, gods no. I won’t bore you with the details, but I promise it wasn’t for anything I did,” Molly said. He paused, frowned, “Well...ok, it _was_ something I did, but something I did before I was me.”

Horris gave him a confused look.

“Like I said. Long story.”

Horris didn’t pry.  

“Show me where you were hit,” he said.

Molly shrugged off his shirt and Caleb’s scarf, still wrapped around his neck, and showed Horris the angry, swollen mess of bruises on his side. Horris grimaced. He gently examined the area, feeling for any bones out of place. His touch made Molly flinch.

“Well, nothing feels broken at least, and if you aren’t having trouble breathing then no fragments have pierced your lung, but I suspect you have several bad fractures,” Horris said, “In either case, there’s not much I can do, I’m afraid. I can give you something for the pain and try to stabilize the injury, but unless you go to a cleric or take a healing potion, it will have to heal on its own.”

“I’ll take anything you’re willing to give me.”

Horris began pulling out bandages and different mixtures of herbs.  

“Normally I would advise against travel, but if you’re on the run, I understand that isn’t possible,” he said, “At the very least, as soon as you’re out of the city you should find somewhere to stop for a while. Get plenty of rest.”

“We’ll give it a shot.”

Caleb walked in, his travel bag over his shoulder, as Horris began bandaging Molly’s ribs.

“So, is there anything you can do?” Caleb asked.

“As I said to him, there isn’t much. He’s just lucky it’s not worse,” Horiss replied.

Caleb nodded and sat down on the bench next to Molly. He picked at his gloves until he couldn’t stand the silence any longer and tried making small talk about how things were going, how Dolan was doing, about Zadash and its politics, things like that. Molly didn’t pay attention to most of it. He was too exhausted to care. He felt like he could sleep for a month.

“I’m afraid we don’t have much in the way of accommodations for guests,” Horris said as their conversation ended and he stood up and walked to the kitchen. He reached into his kit for a few different herbs and went about making some tea, “We’ve got some extra blankets, maybe a pillow or two, but that’s all.”

“That will be fine,” Caleb said, “We are imposing as it is.”

“No, no, no, it’s fine. I’m happy to help. After all, I was the one imposing not too long ago,” he said, walking back over with a small tea cup in his hands. He handed it to Molly, “Not the most appetizing, I’m afraid, but it should help you sleep.”

“Thank you, dear,” Molly said.

He gave the bitter green mixture a sniff before deciding just to drink the whole thing in one go and get it over with. He grimaced at the conflicting flavors, some earthy and smooth, others sharp and bitter, and some heady and aromatic.

“Oh yeah. Not great,” he said, handing the cup back.

“I’ll go find those blankets,” Horris said before setting the cup down in their modest kitchen area and going into the bedroom.

Caleb took a deep breath and tapped his fingers against his thighs. An almost giddy smile spread across his face. He laughed quietly and rested his face in his hands.

“I did it,” he laughed, “I cannot believe it.”

Molly raised an eyebrow and touched Caleb’s back.

“Hey, are you ok?” he asked.

Caleb took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. He dropped his hands and sat up.

“Yes,” he said, “Yes, I am fine. Better than fine. You are here, we are safe, and...well, all in all this is going better than expected.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Molly agreed, “So what’s the plan now?”

“Well, tomorrow I need to leave a message with the Gentleman’s people one way or the other, and we will need to find some way out of the city without getting arrested. No doubt they will be looking for you.”

“We probably should have left tonight.”

“Probably, but we are not getting anywhere fast in your state. We will just have to figure something out.”

Molly paused and studied Caleb’s face.

“So are you going to tell me what happened now?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Caleb asked.

“Well you’re out here alone, and I’m starting to think the others aren’t coming, so unless I gravely underestimated how much you all care about me, something happened.”

“Ah, well, it’s a bit...complicated, but we had a disagreement, and I decided that it would be too dangerous for the others to come, so I went ahead by myself, which I’m sure you think was reckless of me, but it did work,” Caleb said, “And Yasha agreed with me that our plan was not a good one. And this way no one else got hurt, and you did not have to suffer any more than necessary while we dithered around trying to come up with a plan.”

“Caleb.”

Caleb paused and looked up as Molly put his hand on his shoulder. Molly smiled.

“It’s fine. I get it,” he said.

Horris walked back into the main room with a few blankets and an extra pillow. He glanced around at the assorted piles of old books and other junk lying around the room.

“Feel free to spread out wherever you can find room,” he said. He passed the blankets over to Caleb, “I’m going back to bed, unless you need anything else.”

“Would it be possible, in the morning, for you to get a letter to the Gentleman at the Evening Nip?” Caleb asked, “Tell him or his people that it is for the Mighty Nein.”

“I think I could manage that.”

“Thank you.”

Horris nodded.

“Good night,” he said. Then he disappeared back into the bedroom.

Caleb started moving books to make space on the floor while Molly pulled his shirt back on. Caleb glanced back over at him and perked up as if remembering something.

“Oh, I have your coat,” he said.

He stood and walked over to his pack sitting on the bench and pulled Molly’s coat out, folded with as much care as a man who never folded his clothes could manage. Molly smiled.

“You thought of everything, didn’t you?” he said, taking the coat and putting it on. The familiar weight of the heavy fabrics and all their conflicting textures was soothing, and he finally felt like he could fully relax. He picked up Caleb’s scarf from where it had landed on the bench and passed it back.

“Think I got a little blood on it,” he said, “Sorry about that.”

“That is alright, it’s already a filthy mess anyway,” Caleb said. He wound the scarf back around his neck and sat down.

Caleb paused and watched him for a moment.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you after that tea kicks in.”

“That is not what I meant.”

Molly didn’t answer at first. He took a breath and looked down at his hands.

“Ah...I’m not entirely sure,” Molly said, “This whole thing has been...insane. I’ve spent the past several days trying not to think about any of it.”

He looked at Caleb.

“I’m really glad you’re ok, by the way. For a bit there I was worried maybe…” he grimaced and waved his hand dismissively, “Well. That’s one of the things I tried not to think about.”

Caleb nodded.

“Ya. Ya, I’m ok,” he said. He sighed, “which I have you to thank for. I also want to apologize for what happened. There were other things I could have done, so you would not have had to give yourself up like that, and-.”

“Caleb, you know they would have taken me either way. Honest to god, nothing was going to change that,” Molly said, “but there was only one scenario where they didn’t kill you, and that was it. I don’t regret it for a second.”

Caleb was quiet for a moment, his face still somber and resigned, hands folded on his lap. Molly frowned, trying to figure out how to word his thought process in a way that would make Caleb believe this wasn’t his fault. He reached out and put his hand on Caleb’s.

“Look, I knew what would have happened if I didn’t escape,” he said, “If they had their way it would have been...everything I’m most of afraid of. It scared me shitless, but I think I’ve learned something the past few days.”

Caleb glanced over at him, a touch of his gloominess lifting.

“I learned,” Molly continued, “that the more I try to ignore it, the shit that this other guy...that _I_ did, the more it will come back to haunt me. Since I started traveling with you people, it has not mattered how much I tried to run from it, it has always found new and terrible ways to remind me that it’s real. It happened. And it’s part of me. I still refuse to let all that garbage take over my life, but at this point I don’t think pretending it didn’t happen serves anyone, especially when it’s putting people I care about in danger. I did what I did for myself as much as I did it for you.”

He gave Caleb’s hand a squeeze.

“We haven’t dragged each other into anything that wasn’t already going to happen. So please, _please,_ don’t blame yourself. Alright?”

Caleb took a deep breath and released some of the tension in his shoulders as Molly’s words finally seemed to sink in. He was silent for a moment. Then a soft smile broke through the clouds, and he laughed softly.

“We are idiots,” he murmured.

Molly smiled.

“Yes, you are,” he said.

“Oh hush,” Caleb said, giving Molly’s knee a gentle shove.

“Speaking of idiots,” Molly said, “are we trying to find the others after we leave a message?”

“I do not think that would be a good idea. I think we should wait for things to calm down, make our way back to the coast. We can rejoin them once we are sure no one is trying to hunt us down.”

Molly nodded.

“Yeah, alright,” he said, “Seems sensible.”

He smiled.

“Guess we’re going on the run after all,” he said.

“Yes, it seems you have gotten your way after all,” Caleb said, “Which I am ok with if it means putting off seeing the others again.”

“Look, whatever argument you had? It’ll blow over. Hell, it probably already has. We’ll go out, have our fun, and when we find them again, things will be back to normal,” Molly said, “Same as always. You’ve got nothin’ to worry about.”

Caleb nodded, but didn’t say anything. Neither of them spoke for a bit, and as Molly looked around the room, at his hands, he remembered what _else_ had happened that night, beyond the dying and getting arrested. Now with all other concerns out of the way, it was the last thing to talk about. Half of his brain told him to bring it up, get it out in the open, after all they could both be arrested again tomorrow. Half of him wanted to pretend it never happened just in case it didn’t go over well. He stood up and gave into the latter half as he went about setting the blankets down on the floor. Caleb scratched the back of his head and looked down at the floor.

“So are we going to talk about...about the other thing?” Caleb asked.

Molly tensed.

“The other thing?” he asked innocently, refusing to look at Caleb.

“Ya. You remember kissing me, correct?”

Molly’s face flushed.

“Uh, yeah I...might remember doing that,” he said. He stood up, sighed, and turned around, “I’m sorry about that, by the way. I was afraid that would be the last I saw of you, so I panicked, and I probably overstepped a boundary-.”

“You...panicked. Panicked because…?”

“God, are you really gonna make me say it? Because I like you, you idiot. And if you don’t feel the same way, then that’s fine, I just...”

He trailed off as Caleb stood up and took a step towards him. There was a beat of silence as Caleb looked at him, his face starting to flush. There was hesitation in his vibrant, blue eyes, but none of the discomfort Molly had been expecting. He barely had time to process that he wasn't being outright rejected before Caleb grasped the front of his coat and kissed him.

Molly felt only a heartbeat of hesitation, out of surprise more than anything, before closing his eyes and kissing him back. His hands found Caleb’s shoulders, and he had to stop himself from just pushing the wizard to the floor, multiple rib fractures be damned. He practically groaned in frustration when Caleb pulled away.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Caleb murmured, “I should be thanking you.”

Molly smiled.

“Oh? What for?”

“For making me admit to myself that I like you, and want you to put your face on my face.”

“I guess that’s one way to phrase it.”

“Although the circumstances are not ideal,” Caleb continued, “The timing could not have been worse. We could easily be arrested again tomorrow. Or killed. Or maybe the Xhorhasians will finally invade, and then all bets are off.”

“Your pessimism is charming as always,” Molly said, a hint of affectionate sarcasm in his voice, “But if you’re right, and this ends up being all for nothing, then at least we got to have this before being drawn and quartered by the barbarous hordes.”

Caleb paused, thinking. After a moment his face relaxed, and he smiled softly.

“You know,” he said, “I think we will be ok.”

Molly smiled.

“That’s the spirit,” Molly said. His hand traveled along Caleb’s shoulder and cupped the back of his head, “Now stop talking and kiss me again.”


End file.
